CNN "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" - Transcript: Surveillance Programs
Interview
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CROWLEY: Absolutely. Miguel Marquez, it went from tragedy to this moment of elation, but eventually, you come back around to the fact that this kidnapped girl and her father are minus her mother as well as her younger brother. Thanks so much. I know you're staying on the story for us. So, we'll be talking to you later. Back now to politics and who better than our four CNN commentators. Republican strategist, Kevin Madden, Democratic and CNN "Crossfire" host, Stephanie Cutter, radio talk show host, Ben Ferguson, and columnist Errol Louis. So, rarely do we get a chance to have some happy news, but I want to now bring you back to last Friday where the president had a news conference.
He sought to ease Americans' doubts about the massive NSA surveillance program and outlined the series of reforms. They include working with Congress to reform the way telephone data is collected, restructuring the secret court that approves the gathering of intelligence, declassification of some NSA activities and outside experts to review computer spy technology.
I want to welcome someone else from afar to join our round table. It's Congressman James Clyburn, the assistant Democratic leader in the House. Last month, he joined forces with conservative Republicans in a failed effort to defund the surveillance program.
Congressman, first of all, thank you so much for being there. I wanted to ask you, first of all, if what the president said in any way made you feel easier or more comfortable about this program, in particular, the phone data that is collected on every American?
CLYBURN: First of all, thank you so much for having me, Candy. Yes, but I felt that way before. As you know, the president spoke out on this issue long before Snowden. And, I was very comfortable with the president's position on this.
It's just that every now and then, you catch a vote in order to let your constituents know and for your colleagues to know exactly how you feel about situation, and sometimes, let the White House know that this is something that we cannot allow you to have just a blank check on.
CROWLEY: So, as far as you are concerned, can the president satisfy your concern and the concerns of your constituents in any other way other than kind of reducing the scope of that phone date collecting program?
CLYBURN: Oh, yes, he can. Transparency is always very, very important. I think most American people want to be safe and secure in their homes and when they are carrying out their day to day activities. And so, we want the president to do what is necessary to keep us safe. He's got a tremendous record in that regard, and I'm very proud of that record, but, all things don't start and stop at the president's desk.
As you go down the line -- as you know, we have a process in place that for some reason allow an Ed Snowden to exist and to get information. You want to be very, very careful in not just what the president doing, but with all of the hired hands may be doing when they're carrying out their duties and responsibilities.
CROWLEY: Sure.
CLYBURN: And also to find out whether or not these are the right people to have me in these positions. So, the president can do a lot of things, issuing orders to make sure that these contractors, for instance, are going through a process that would allow us to know what kind of people they're hiring and to weed out these bad actors because that's what happened in this particular case.
CROWLEY: Let me bring in our panel now, because the question now exists. The president says, well, we need a little more transparency about these programs, and we need a little more oversight, maybe, you know, put in an advocate for civil rights into the process that can argue in front of the surveillance courts.
So, in some ways, has he made Edward Snowden more a whistleblower than the traitor that we were, you know, told he was when this happened.
BEN FERGUSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, he has, and that's the biggest issue I have with the president this morning is he defended this program and went to bat for it. Not very long ago on multiple occasions, Snowden comes out. Snowden gets now exactly what he wanted which was to be a whistleblower, not be a traitor even though he's in Russia right now and the issues he has --
CROWLEY: There still are charges against him.
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: But he's now being looked at as more of a whistleblower. And I think the president, if he believes in the program, he should have not had Snowden have this much influence on the White House and public opinion, but president believes in this program which I believe he did or still does then he should have walked out and explained it to the American people and said this is you need to know.
I still think this is a good program. I don't think Snowden should have this much influence, and yet, Snowden is the one doing --
CROWLEY: Stephanie, there is also this sort of conundrum when they came on is that Edward Snowden has endangered lives. He's endangered our sources. He's done all sorts of bad things, and then, the president comes out and says we need to be more transparent. So, I'm caught between those two.
STEPHANIE CUTTER, CNN CROSSFIRE HOST: Right. Well, there's a big difference, Candy, between dumping a bunch of security information out there on the internet and working with Congress to make sure that everybody has the information they need to sign off on these things. There's a big difference.
And I think what the president said in his press conference was that he does believe in this program, because it is protecting American lives, but we have to find a balance. And that's exactly the same argument he made when he was a senator.
(CROSSTALK)
ERROL LOUIS, COLUMNIST: He's going to be stepping, you know? I mean, that's clearly what he's signaled in the press conference. He's becoming, you know, sort of the constitutional --
(CROSSTALK)
LOUIS: He's the constitutional scholar. You know, he's comfortable that he's got the right balance between the secret court and the secret advocates who argue before the secret court with materials and none of us will ever see. But he's saying, well, maybe we'll put somebody else in the room. And I'm already happy with this, but obviously, some of you people in the public aren't so.
Let me, you know, throw you a crumb and see if that will work. Now, from what we just heard from Congressman Clyburn, that's not really going to succeed.
LOUIS: And I suspect we're going to see step after step after step until he sort of gets into some real balance which is going to be far beyond anything the White House wants.
CUTTER: Well, I think also, the more of that Congress -- you know, there are plenty of people in Congress that have full information on this program, and they've said that and they've signed off on it. But I think as more and more are brought into some of the details here, they're going to understand that there's a tradeoff between transparency --
(CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: Kevin did, in fact, allude to that saying the American people want to be safe. It seems to me that the minute you bring up safety and terrorism, especially after the week we've had with all of these embassies closed that there's really no way that any of these programs are going to substantially be changed because they're too far reaching.
MADDEN: Well, I think, look, that's one of the reasons -- that's one of the interesting things about this issue is that there hasn't been this reflex with partisanship up on Capitol Hill that the opposition or the support for it doesn't fall along the very traditional partisan lines that most issues, actually -- that occurs with most issues in Washington D.C. And I think that the public is by and large supporter of this program. So, I think the president has to do two things. He has to actually genuinely work with Congress on this instead of just providing a rhetoric, and then, I think he has to continue to make sustained arguments in support of the program. The big problem is and this goes to Ben's point is that the only person -- the person who's doing the most talking about at this program up until at this point was Edward Snowden and that's a problem.
CROWLEY: I want you all to stick with us. Congressman Clyburn, I hope you can stay with us, too. When we come back, the fight over Obamacare and fears of a government shutdown.
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SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: Under no circumstances, will we support a continuing resolution that funds one penny of Obamacare. SEN. MIKE LEE, (R) UTAH: The law is banned. The law is certainly not ready to implement and we shouldn't fund it.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO, (R) FLORIDA: And I will not vote for a continuing resolution, unless, it defunds Obamacare.
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CROWLEY: That is a sample of what some Republicans are preaching. We are back now with Congressman Jim Clyburn and our panel, Kevin Madden, Stephanie Cutter, Ben Ferguson, and Errol Louis.
First to you, congressman, even the president admits there will be glitches. We're not sure how big they're going to be over the next year with the implementation of some major parts of Obamacare, specifically, with requirement that all individuals have some kind of health care. The worry has not just been on the Republican side. It's been on the Democratic side.
You've heard from unions who are worried that they're long fought for benefits are going to go down the tubes with Obamacare. You've heard from Democrats saying it looks like a mess. How concerned are your constituents? How concerned are you?
CLYBURN: Well, I'm always concerned that we're trying to do anything this big. The fact of the matter is if we'd go back to the founding of the country, every time we've tried to do something big, we've had to tweak it later on. Even the constitution of the United States, when it was put in place, almost immediately we figured out something was wrong.
And so, we amended it with the bill of rights. Ten amendments to the United States constitution. We've had to fix Social Security often. We've had to do things with Medicare often, and we'll have to do a lot of things with Obamacare as well because things change, circumstances change and people change. Needs are different.
And so, we are going to be tweaking Obamacare for a long, long time, but I'm very interested in what I heard from one of the town halls in North Carolina. One of my Republican colleagues got a pretty air flow yesterday at his town hall meet meeting. People want to keep their children on their insurance policies when they're out of work up until they're 26 years old.
People don't want to be kicked off of insurance as soon as they get sick. They want their children born with juvenile diabetes to get coverage. These are things that were made possible by Obamacare and we are not going to throw out the baby with the bathwater, and I think that they ought to come to the realization that we ought to get serious about fixing it and doing what is necessary to tweak it and get it right rather than just to repeal.
CROWLEY: This is where -- congressman, I want to bring in our panel, too. This is where politics meets scheduling, because the Obama administration deliberately put the good parts that the congressman just mentioned. Keeping your kids on your own health care insurance until they're 26. No pre-existing conditions.
No caps on how much your health care is costing you, but now comes the part that's difficult and that is paying for it. So, one of two things are happened. A lot of people come in and get health care insurance who don't have it or really sick people are going to be left as the only ones with health care and the others willing to pay the fine which isn't.
MADDEN: Well, look, first, let's drop the pretense that Obamacare even with all of those provisions in it now is in any way popular. It's not. It's very unpopular. The reason --
(CROSSTALK)
MADDEN: -- because it's suffocating the American economy. And some of the worst parts are still to come and the American people are very cognizant of that.
CROWLEY: But let me just add that some of the opposition to it is that it didn't go far enough, so we'll just add that.
MADDEN: When you have a ballot test right now, whether you think we should keep Obamacare or whether we should repeal it. Repeal wins.
CUTTER: Actually, that's not true.
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CUTTER: -- you ask the question should we keep it in place and adjust it as we go along? The overwhelming majority of the American people believe we should keep it in place and go on as needed. And, the individual provisions of -- you know, when you look at the top lines of whether popular or not, I think we should all acknowledge that a lot of politics is wrapped up in that and it's called Obamacare.
CUTTER: But when you look at the individual provisions and asked people about the individual provisions, they're overwhelmingly popular, and everybody -- (CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: The congressman even spoke to this. This thing is too big. It was too big from the beginning. It was too broad sweeping from the beginning, and more importantly, he said we're going to have to tweak it. I wished they would have paid attention to the law when they actually passed and said, now, passing it and then go, OK, we got to fix a lot of stuff with it And if this bill was so good --
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: If the bill was so good and it was going to be so great and it was going to be easy, then they would have been running on it 2014 and said delaying so many parts of it because Democrats out there know it's not popular.
LOUIS: They're going to be running --
FERGUSON: No, they're not.
(CROSSTALK)
LOUIS: You look at the president's body language in that press conference and he is saying, look, if what you want to do is run on 2014 on the proposition of throwing millions of people off of existing health care --
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LOUIS: Be my guest. He's inviting it over --
FERGUSON: Name a prominent Democratic candidate who's out there advocating right now for Obamacare. You can't find when including Hillary Clinton. She's not even out there advocating for it.
(CROSSTALK)
FERGUSON: I think we know she's going to be many one of your candidates.
CUTTER: Well, let's say if she does, if she runs for president, let's see what she says about health care. I guarantee you, this will be an issue in the next election and Democrats feel very confident that we're on the winning side of this. Republicans, however you want to frame it, are on the side of taking something away from people and that has never stopped.
(CROSSTALK)
CUTTER: I think the president said on Friday, bring it on. Let's do it -- works out for --
CROWLEY: Let me bring in Congressman Clyburn. I'm assuming that you are hearing all of this and one of the suggestions here was that Democrats are not running on Obamacare in 2014. I'm assuming you are, given what you have said earlier, do you think in the end that Obamacare is going to be a net plus, not ten years from now or five years from now, but next year when Democrats most need a healthy economy and an Obamacare that is working reasonably smoothly?
CLYBURN: Absolutely, I believe that. The fact of the matter is, we will be running on Obamacare in 2014. In fact, we set it up to run on it in 2014. All that's the talk about now kicks in as January 1, 2014. We will start doing the exchanges on October 1, 2013.
We fully expect to run on it, and we expect to win on it. The American people will be the winners and that's what my Republican colleagues are getting into these town hall meetings during the month of August. This is a big, big difference.
CROWLEY: Let me interject here, congressman, that yes, you are running on those good parts that you mentioned, the health care that people are unable to get if they're sick, et cetera. The question, though, and one of the reasons when the president said you know what? We're going to delay for a year requiring businesses to either ensure or pay a fine and a lot of folks looked at that and said because they realize this is going to cost businesses money and it will be bad for the economy.
So, is that not true that a major part of Obamacare was canceled for fear that what's going to happen is businesses will cut back and they will have part-time workers as opposed to full-time workers?
CLYBURN: Well, that's part of the tweaking process. Suddenly, we are going to tweak it going forward. We know that small businesses, and I talk to them all, all the time. I go to these Chambers of Commerce meetings. I go to the rotary clubs and the optimist clubs, and I've talked to them exactly the way I'm talking to you today.
We are going to tweak this. It's a very complicated piece of legislation. We know that a lot of people who are in business do not understand the tax subsidies that come along with this and when they understand it, they see it as a big benefit. And we don't talk about the tax subsidies. We don't talk about the real good things about the bill. We only talk about those things that people are complaining about, but I want to remind the panel. Social Security was very, very unpopular when it was put in place back in the 1930s. Medicare, very, very unpopular, but when I come out here today and I talk about Social Security and Medicare, people tell me right off the bat, keep your hands off of my Social Security and my Medicare. They will be saying the same thing, ten, 15 years from now about Obamacare.
CROWLEY: Congressman Clyburn, I can tell you that our panel has been listening and has so reminded, I mentioned I have a couple of things to say, but I need say goodbye to you now. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Our panel is going to stick around.
CLYBURN: Thank you.
CROWLEY: Thank you. And when we come back --
CLYBURN: Thank you so much for having me.
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