ny b9 farmer misc- wh 2 of 3 fdr- 1-28-02 campbell brown-nbc interview of cheney 460

8/14/2019 NY B9 Farmer Misc- WH 2 of 3 Fdr- 1-28-02 Campbell Brown-NBC Interview of Cheney 460

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THE WHITE HOUSEOffice of the Press Secretary

Internal Transcript January 28, 2002

INTERVIEW OF THE VICE PRESIDENTBY CAMPBELL BROWN, NBC NEWS

Mrs. Cheney's OfficeEisenhower Executive Office Building

11:00 A.M. EST

Q Let's start with a subject that I know is one ofyour favorite at the moment -- Enron. You've made yourposition on this abundantly clear, that you have nointention of handing over documents to the GeneralAccounting Office relating to the Energy Task Force. Butover the weekend, Chief of Staff Andy Card, on Meet ThePress, seemed to indicate that there may be some room forcompromise for perhaps handing documents to a congressionalcommittee, certain documents limiting the information. Isthat something that's being discussed?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we believe we've alreadyprovided a great deal of information. The important thinghere, Campbell, to understand is what we're focused on arethose things that relate to my role as Vice President; thatas Vice President I'm the constitutional officer providedfor in the Constitution. And the General Accounting Officehas authority over statutory agencies, but not overconstitutional officers. That's not the way their statuteis set up. And that it's important here to protect theability of the President and THE VICE PRESIDENT to getunvarnished advice from any source we want.

We have given them a lot of information, for example,about the cost of the operation. They've got information onthe various agencies and departments that participated wherethey clearly do have jurisdiction. But in this one area, wethink it's very important to preserve that principle.

Q I understand the principle, the confidentialityissue. But can you understand the perception problem, thatto many people it may look like the administration hassomething to hide?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, but again, what's the charge\? Whatis it that we are alleged to have done with|000358


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respect to the Energy Task Force? The fact is, there reallyaren't any charges. Enron didn't receive any specialtreatment. We talked to all kinds of people. We talked toenergy companies, we talked to consumer groups, we talked toenvironmentalists, we've talked to labor leaders, as we puttogether our package. It's a very good package.

What happened was that Congressman Waxman decided hedidn't want to have to deal with the substance of what werecommended, so he attacked it on the basis of process: youdidn't talk to the right people; you should have talked tothis person instead of that person.When he got the GAO involved when they first looked atthis last August, and we took a very tough position, they,in effect, backed off. Now what's happened is, with the

Enron corporate collapse, some of my Democratic friends onthe Hill have decided they'd like to come back and try tocreate a political issue when there really isn't one. Butfor us to give up on this very important principle for thesake of political expediency, which, frankly, is the way welook it -- the collapse of Enron should not justifycompromise on a basic fundamental principle of thepresidency -- we think that would be a mistake. We thinkthat would be wrong.

-^ Most of all, we're interested here in trying to pass on|to our successors our offices in better shape than we^ s ? them in. For 35 years that I've been in town, there's beena constant, steady erosion of the prerogatives and thepowers of the President of the United States. And I don't

want to be a part of that.Q But can't you understand the perception problem?You're a former oil man --THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have to deal in reality, notperception.Q But this is the reality. You are a former oilman; the President's a formal oil man; Don Evans, theCommerce Secretary, a former oil man. So to a lot ofpeople, it may appear that your friends at the energycompanies may have had undue influence when you weredeveloping this --THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let's talk about undue influencefor a minute. The Sierra Club put out a set of energypolicy recommendations, 12 points. Our energy

recommendations put out by our task force includes 11 ofthose. Are we unduly influenced by the Sierra Club? Ofcourse not. The solution, if you want to evaluate the^ policy, is go read the study, look at the 105J 000359


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recommendations we made, decide whether they make sense ordon't make sense. Some of them are probably good news forenergy companies, some of them aren't.Enron, for example, wanted us to put a mandatory

emissions limit on carbon dioxide. We said no. Enronwanted us to support the Kyoto Treaty. We said no. Noteverybody got everything they wanted. But did we talk toenergy companies? Absolutely. You'd have to be a damn foolto put together a comprehensive, nationwide energy policyand not talk to energy companies.

Q I'm going to do this one more time, then we'regoing to move on.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's all right.Q You're a realist, though. You do know that thereis a political cost here. Is the principle worth that

political cost?THE VICE PRESIDENT: I took an oath when I took -- when

I was sworn in to support and defend the Constitution of theUnited States. You have an obligation, I believe, in theseoffices to defend the office against the unlawful orunconstitutional or unreasonable encroachment by the otherbranches of government.The way the Constitution is set up specificallyprovides for separation of powers. And to create aprecedent where future vice presidents, for example, wouldbe in a situation where anytime they meet with somebody,

they have to call Henry Waxman and tell them who they metwith, what the subject was that was discussed, giving himnotes of the meetings that were taken -- now, theCongressman does not have the constitutional right to insistthat the President or THE VICE PRESIDENT provide him withthat information, any more than I can demand of theCongressman, look, you've got to tell me everybody youtalked to before you cast that vote. That's silly. That'snot the way the government works.

We sit down, we get advice from any source we want.We, in the end, make decisions, and those decisions getembodied in legislation we recommended, or in this case, ina 177-page report which is not secret, we printed thousandsof copies of it, distributed it all over town. Go evaluatethe report.Enron didn't get any special deals. Nobody got any

special deals. What we did was to give our best judgment.You can argue with it, you can debate it, you can say you

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like it or don't like it, but you can't attack it by saying,well, we're suspicious.

Q Have you and the President talked about Enron?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Well, we've talked aboutthe study, about our task force.Q What can you tell us about those discussions?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Nothing. I never talk about myconversations with the President.Q But have you talked about this issue, the factthat --THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Of course, we've discussedthe question of the energy report and my role in it as VicePresident. And he feels as strongly as I do the importanceof protecting and preserving the principles that are part

and parcel of the constitutional authority of the Presidentand THE VICE PRESIDENT of the United States.I cannot do my job if I can't be -- if I'm not able todeal with people in confidence. If people can't come to meand tell me what they really think, if they can't come andoffer advice or argument without knowing that the next dayit's going to be on the front page of The Washington Post,or I'm going to call some congressman and say, okay, thesepeople were in, this is what they said, then there's just noway for this job, this office to function under thosecircumstances.Q Let's talk a little bit about the fallout of thecompany's collapse. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill saidabout Enron's collapse, and I'm quoting, "Companies come andgo. That's the genius of capitalism." Is that theadministration's policy, that it's okay to stand by andwatch?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think what Paul is

referring to there is that in our private sector economy,one of the great strengths of our system is that companiesget started, they grow, they do very well; those that aren'tefficient or can't compete fall by the wayside. That's theway it's always been.The problem we've got here with Enron is that it may

well have been much more than just the normal laws ofcompetition -- supply and demand. It looks like there weresignificant flaws in terms of the way the company was run.Now, exactly what happened, we don't know. We do know thatinvestors lost billions. We know that employees lost their

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life savings. We know the company is bankrupt. There areserious questions about how the accounting function workedand how Arthur Andersen did its job, serious questions abouthow Enron was managed. Those questions need to be answered.What the President has made clear is that we will doeverything we can to get to the bottom of it. If laws werebroken, people will be prosecuted to the full extent of thelaw. If laws need to be changed, they will be changed.We're already working with a task force on 401K plans, forexample. So we are -- we do think there was a fundamentalproblem here, not just sort of the normal cycling, if youwill, of the economy. Clearly, something seriously wronghappened at Enron.Q Some of the things you're looking at are moreregulations for 401Ks, for pension plans. But how does thatmesh with the general Republican philosophy of freer rein inthe corporate world?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't think -- I wouldargue you've misstated the Republican philosophy. Webelieve in a free economy. We believe in the competition ofmarkets and companies. We think that's very important. Butwe also still think it has to be regulated so that you can'thave fraud, for example. If somebody violates basic,fundamental statutes, they ought to be prosecuted to thefull extent of the law.Now, what has happened with respect to Enron is as --we will move very aggressively -- I think you will findRepublicans are probably stronger defenders of the systemand tougher on the Enron proposition than are Democrats.

What we believe in is the ability of companies to go out andcompete. And if you're going to have.that, then you've gotto have transparency", you've got to have financial reportsthat are accurate, people have to be able to look at acompany and its reports and know that those are true, validrepresentations of the status of'the company. And it wouldappear that with respect to Enron, that wasn't the case.Q My last Enron question. A lot of people take theview that what's happened with Enron, the attention it'sgetting, that it's about class; that the monied executivesat Enron walked away moderately scathed, while the littleguy, in this case, lost their shirt. You have a lot ofpeople in this administration, including yourself, who arefrom that former category -- rich executives at one time inyour career. So how do you convince the American peoplethat you care about the little guy, in this case?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've had a long career,Campbell, and I didn't start rich. I spent the first six

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We also have been very concerned because he clearly wasinvolved, or people very close to him were clearly involvedin this shipment of 50 tons of weapons from Iran inconjunction with Hezbollah, slated for Palestine and theWest Bank. He is --Q Do you believe he was involved in that?THE VICE PRESIDENT: My own personal view is that itwould not have happened without his knowledge, given thelevel of involvement of people very close to him and aroundhim. So the key here is whether or not he is going toconduct himself in a way that would allow him to be aneffective interlocutor with respect to the peace process.So far, he hasn't done that. He knows what he has to do.He knows he has to deal with the violence on the West Bank.Until he does, it's difficult to see how we make anyprogress in the peace process.Q But do you have another option?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we've always got options.The United States government has got a major role to playhere. The President's committed to the peace process, hasspoken out on behalf of the Palestinian state. SecretaryPowell made an important speech last December on all ofthese subjects. We had General Zinni to the region. Wewant to engage and push forward on that basis. But we haveto have somebody on the Palestinian side who's prepared tobe an effective participant in that process. And that meansthey've got to control the violence emerging from the WestBank and say -- so far, Yasser Arafat has not done that.Q And for the moment, Yasser Arafat is the onlyperson we have. _THE VICE PRESIDENT: So far, Yasser Arafat has not donewhat he knows he has to do.Q Much was made over the weekend about a possiblesplit among the administration's foreign policy team aboutthe detainees, the status of the detainees in Cuba. Has theadministration met to discuss this?THE VICE PRESIDENT: We frequently --we meet almostdaily with respect to the National Security Council and/orthe principals -- that's the NSC without the President beingthere. I never discuss what's on the agenda of thosemeetings. We're obviously involved generally in addressingthe war on terror and conducting the war on terror, butthose meetings are and need to be classified.

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Q But the foreign policy team, in particular, islooking at this issue and there's obviously disagreementover the status of those detainees and how it should behandled.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I disagree with that. Ithink there are important questions the President has toresolve, important legal issues with respect to the GenevaConvention and how it may or may not apply in thisparticular instance. There's no disagreement on thedetainees. We all agree they're not lawful combatants. Weall agree that they will be treated humanely. All of that'strue. There are important other policy considerations thatare being deliberated in the interagency. But, as I say,those deliberations are classified.

Q The State of the Union. The President gives hisState of the Union address tomorrow. How have thepriorities changed from one year ago?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, clearly, the events ofSeptember llth have shifted the focus very much. I mean, ayear ago we were focused very much on the tax bill, which wegot done; we were focused on education reform, which we gotdone. Now, after September llth, were in the midst of awar, we're involved in a war on terror. It's gone very wellin Afghanistan, but that's only the beginning. We've gotterror cells in 65 or 70 countries around the world that weneed to wrap up. So that conflict will continue for someconsiderable period of time. That colors everything else wedo.

We're also in a position now where we need to do muchmore than we ever had before with respect to securing thehomeland -- that is to say, making us.invulnerable toattack, doing everything we can to head off and disruptefforts to kill Americans. And that effort is underway,too.

Final point, I think, that is different today than whatit was a year ago, of course, is we're in a recession. Wedidn't have -- we thought we were in the beginning of arecession last year. We said as much before the inaugural.But now we've actually experienced, we've had two, maybethree quarters of negative real growth. And we think it'svital to get the economy back on track, to provide jobs forAmericans. And that will be an important part of thePresident's focus, as well.

Q A year ago, though, this was a country that wasenjoying -- an administration that was enjoying a massivesurplus. We are now looking at massive deficits --

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THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, we're not. We're looking at -- we had a massive surplus. We're now looking at small1 deficits as the result of the recession. The recession has

significantly reduced the amount of revenue that's going tocome in over the course of the next several years, but it'sa slowdown in the economy that caused that. But even withthe very significant increase in defense spending and theincrease for homeland security the President calls for, westill end up with a smaller deficit than we've had in anyrecession in recent memory. It's a relatively modestdeficit given the total size of the economy.

Q Are you okay, though, dealing with deficits?THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. I mean, if you look back at

statements the President and I have both made, we believevery deeply in trying to run a surplus, but there areexpectations. The exceptions are war, recession, nationalemergency. And we've got all three. And the amazing thingis that the economy is strong enough even in a recession tobe able to support and sustain the priorities we need, andstill come very close to eliminating the deficit.

Q I'm getting the signal we need to wrap this up.But let me ask you -- you probably have one of the mostwell-documented health histories of anybody in the country.How do you feel?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good.Q Any change in the status?THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.Q Are you working out? ... . THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am, every day.Q Do you think if this President, who has an

approval rating right now hovering near 80 percent, if thatholds, will you serve eight years?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I will make a judgment about asecond term based on whether or not he wants me. Obviously,it will be his call. After the first term he'll have todecide whether or not he wants me on the ticket for thesecond term. But assuming it makes sense and all of thethings being equal, I'd be glad to serve. I've enjoyed itvery much, it's been a great job. I love working for him.It's a fascinating time to be here. And I would like tocontinue to serve as long as he wants me. But it's hiscall.

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Q Is this job more or less stressful now than youthought it would be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No -- this is my fifth time ingovernment, my third time in the White House. So, Campbell,this is not new in that sense. And stress is doingsomething you don't like. Stress is having to spend yourdays in a job that you just hate. That's not my problem.This is a great job and I'm delighted to be here.

Q Mr. Vice President, thank you.END 11:20 A.M. EST

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