MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
Friday, September 2, 2005
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MATTHEWS: Thank you, Andrea Mitchell.
I'm joined right now by Governor Bob Riley of Alabama. He met with President Bush today as he toured Mobile, Alabama. And U.S. Congressman William Jefferson, who is at the National Guard center in New Orleans and was with the president today as well.
Let me to go Governor Riley.
What was the president's mood today? Did he sense that he was on top of this, Governor?
GOV. BOB RILEY (R), ALABAMA: You know, I think he-he was somber,
but he was deadly serious about taking care of the problems that exist in - all across the Gulf Coast, not just in-in New Orleans.
MATTHEWS: Did you get the sense that he had been watching this on television right through starting last Sunday?
RILEY: No.
When he first got off the plane, the first thing he wanted to know is, what can we do to help? Is there anything that we need to be doing? I told him, I said Mr. President, FEMA has been great in Alabama. I don't know of a request that we have made that has not been handled promptly.
(CROSSTALK)
RILEY: So, we had an opportunity to visit a little about the number of people that we homeless here, talk about an operation that we set up in Alabama called Operation Golden Rule, where we're trying to house as many of these evacuees as we can possibly take out of Mississippi. We're in-going on that. So, essentially, that's what we were talking about.
MATTHEWS: Let me go to Congressman Jefferson.
Congressman Jefferson, we have been covering this all week all around the clock. And there's a clear distinction visible in the way these two communities are being dealt with. You see Alabama and Mississippi, you're seeing direct aid there. Everybody is getting the cars unloaded with all the supplies, the water, etcetera. Then, for days, we saw New Orleans, the folks around the Convention Center, desperately crying to the cameras for help. What happened?
REP. WILLIAM JEFFERSON (D), LOUISIANA: It's been a failure, the organization and communication early on.
And it's been a breakdown, which is totally unacceptable. I'm at the Superdome now. Actually, I'm in an (INAUDIBLE) Army vehicle, and one of the big ones that drive above the water. So, we're watching people now who are so strong. Really, out here, on the edge of the Superdome, it is a terrible scene.
Today, on the plane, however, and throughout the day, we got a chance to really have the president get an eyeful and an earful from everybody down here about what needs to be done. And I think we have made tremendous progress. I think the president expressed a real commitment to have-move the process along. And I think, even he, I believe, was surprised at the lack of adequate pace of things. And he pushed people real hard today to get things moving and get things done.
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute, Congressman.
JEFFERSON: And I think we have made some progress.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Congressman, are you saying the president of the United States was surprised by what he saw when he got to New Orleans?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: This has been on television now all week.
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFERSON: ... little bit.
MATTHEWS: Congressman Jefferson, did you say the president was surprised by what he saw in New Orleans?
JEFFERSON: No.
I think he was-I think-I think the president was moved by what he saw in New Orleans. I think-what I said was that he got an eyeful and an earful from all of us down here...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
JEFFERSON: .. on what needed to be done. And I think he took it all in very well.
I don't know that-he had to be shocked at some of the things he saw, because he hadn't seen them that close up before. He had seen them from Air Force One. Now he was able to seen them from a helicopter and on the ground. So, obviously, it's quite a different thing when you're close down looking at all this devastation than it is from way up high in Air Force One.
MATTHEWS: Yes. But it's been on TV all week. That's what I'm amazed by.
Let me go right now to Congressman Bennie Thompson in Mississippi.
He's also with us tonight by phone.
Congressman, tell me about the situation in Mississippi-in Alabama, rather.
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D), MISSISSIPPI: Well, I think what we have here in Mississippi is a twofold problem, the devastation on the Gulf Coast and how do we accommodate so many of the evacuees in the rest of the state?
We're working on it, but this is a tremendous problem, a problem that will only grow in time.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the difficulty those people had in getting out of harm's way. How would you explain to somebody who lives up north in a big city, for example, why these people got stuck in the middle of that horror this weekend-last weekend?
(CROSSTALK)
JEFFERSON: ... of course, it's the poorest people who got left in town, principally.
And it is the same (INAUDIBLE) tough choices poor folks make every day, you know, choose between medicine and food,. Now they had to choose between their own safety and whether they could afford to get out of town. And many of them couldn't. And there was planning made to kind of get them out of town.
And so, consequently, they took the chance, many of them, of just trying to get through it. And it's been a horrific outcome for a lot of people. But the poorest people always get the toughest end of it. And they have-they couldn't-they did not have a way out. And they got stuck here. And it is just awfully, awfully, awfully hard.
MATTHEWS: Is that right, Congressman Thompson? Same question.
THOMPSON: Well, that's right.
But I think the other piece is that the Department of Homeland Security has a responsibility for responding to those disasters in the appropriate manner. What we have is a four-and-a-half-day late response to a situation that's catastrophic.
The Department of Homeland Security has the ultimate responsibility to move with dispatch in a disaster situation. The president did not have to assume personal responsibility of this situation if his officials had been in charge of the situation.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
Let me to Governor Riley.
It seem like Alabama got a better deal from FEMA. Does it look that way to you?
RILEY: You know, there's no way I can comment on what went on in Mississippi or Louisiana.
But I can tell you this. The president called me almost every day. Secretary Chertoff would call once or twice a day. I probably talk to Mike Brown three or four times every day. And the response was always the same. Tell us what we need to do. And, again, every request we ever made was responded to.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you all about FEMA as an organization, starting with you, Governor Riley.
FEMA, of course, is going to be responsible if we get hit by some sort of terrorist attack. Do you think it is up to the challenge?
RILEY: You know, Chris, I can't comment on whether or not they can take care of a catastrophe that happens with a biological or a nuclear weapon or something like that.
The only thing that I can say is that all the FEMA people who were sent to Alabama were professional. They were with us all the way through. There was a strike team that came in early. They helped us in everything that we tried to do.
I think the magnitude of this-of this crisis probably did overwhelm some of the state's resources. Alabama wasn't hit nearly as hard as Mississippi or Louisiana. but I can tell you, from the president to Secretary Chertoff to Mike Brown, I can't ask for anyone to be more concerned or caring than they've been in the last four or five days.
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Senator-Governor, rather-Governor Bob Riley of Alabama, Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, and U.S. Congressman William Jefferson of New Orleans, Louisiana.
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