Meet the Press, NBC

March 1, 2009
Transcript and Video Link

Exclusive! Robert Gates joins us for his first television interview

as President Obama's Secretary of Defense. He'll discuss the
administration's new Iraq withdrawal plans; troop levels in
Afghanistan; U.S. defense spending; and our nation's military
interests around the globe. Plus, a political roundtable with Fmr.
Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN); GOP Strategist Mike Murphy; Vanity
Fair's Dee Dee Myers; and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.

MR. DAVID GREGORY: Our issues this Sunday: After almost six
years and the loss of more than 4,000 American lives, President
Obama says the war in Iraq is coming to a close.

(Videotape)

PRES. BARACK OBAMA: By August 31st, 2010 our combat

mission in Iraq will end.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: But is the exit strategy realistic? Is the worst

really over in Iraq? And will an increase of 17,000 U.S. troops in
Afghanistan be enough to stop the growing violence there? An
exclusive interview with the man who will be charged with
implementing the new strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first
person to ever serve as secretary of defense under presidents
from two different parties, Robert Gates.

Then, President Obama announces a $3.6 trillion budget plan that

transforms the role of government.

(Videotape)

PRES. OBAMA: This budget is an honest accounting of where we

are and where we intend to go.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): The era of big government is back,

and Democrats are asking you to pay for it.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Is the plan a political gamble for the new

president? What impact will this massive spending plan have on
the economic crisis? And how will the Republican Party structure
its opposition against a popular president? Our political
roundtable weighs in: chair of the National Democratic
Leadership Council, former Democratic congressman from
Tennessee Harold Ford Jr.; John McCain's chief strategist during
the 2000 presidential campaign, Republican strategist Mike
Murphy; White House press secretary during President Clinton's
first term and author of "Why Women Should Rule the World,"
Dee Dee Myers; and host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," former
Republican Congressman from Florida Joe Scarborough.
But first, yesterday evening I sat down with Robert Gates in his
first television interview as President Obama's secretary of
defense.

Mr. Secretary, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

SEC'Y ROBERT GATES: Thank you.

MR. GREGORY: For the first time at Camp Lejeune in North

Carolina on Friday, the president talked about a date certain for
the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. This is what he said.

(Videotape, Friday)

PRES. OBAMA: But August 31st, 2010 our combat mission in Iraq
will end. I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end
of 2011.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Now, the president talks about the combat

mission being over by August of 2010; the idea being that we're
currently at about 142,000 troops, that residual force would be
roughly 50,000 troops. But those forces left in Iraq will still be in
harm's way. There will be some fighting, they will be dying. This
war will go on beyond August of 2010.

SEC'Y GATES: They do have a very different mission, but that

mission will be principally a training, assistance, advisory role.
There will be a limited counterterrorism operations aspect to it,
and we will still have some soldiers embedded with Iraqi units as
part of, of the training effort. But it's a very different kind of
arrangement, and our soldiers will be consolidated into a limited
number of bases in order to provide protection for themselves
and for civilians who are out working in the Iraqi neighborhoods
and countryside as well. So I think that the way General Odierno
plans this, the, the risk to our troops will be substantially less
than certainly was last year, and it has, has gradually declined.

MR. GREGORY: So that mission then changes with, with a

smaller force. How, how do you describe it generally? Is this a
situation where U.S. forces are, are standing down and Iraqi
forces are finally standing up in that principle position?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, the Iraqi forces already are standing up in a

significant way. They basically organized the security for the
provincial elections last month and did a very good job. We were
in the background, helped them with some planning and so on.
But it, but it is a very different kind of mission, and the units that
will be left there will be characterized differently. They will be
called advisory and assistance brigades. They won't be called
combat brigades.

MR. GREGORY: But nevertheless, we say the combat mission is

over, U.S. troops will still be in harm's way.
SEC'Y GATES: Yes, but at a very different level than in the past.

MR. GREGORY: Some Democrats, supporters of the president--

critics of the war, like the president, who was opposed to the war
in Iraq--think that the size of the residual force at 50,000 troops
is too big. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was interviewed on
MSNBC this week by Rachel Maddow. This is what she said.

(Videotape, Wednesday)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): And I don't know what the

justification is for 50,000--a presence of 50,000 troops in Iraq. I
do think that there's a need for some, and I don't know that all of
them have to be in country. I would think a third of that, maybe
20,000, a little more than a third, 15,000 or 20,000.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Does this agreement represent, on the part of

the president, a concession to his commanders on the ground to
keep a larger force than perhaps he originally wanted for fear
that the county might come apart without a significant U.S.
presence?

SEC'Y GATES: No, I don't think it was a concession. I think that

there was a lot of analysis of the risks that were involved. I think
that if the commanders had had complete say in this matter that,
that they would have preferred that, that the combat mission not
end until the end of 2010. And so having a somewhat larger
residual or transition force mitigates the risk of having the
combat units go out sooner.

MR. GREGORY: Hm.

SEC'Y GATES: So it was really a dialogue between the

commanders in the field, the Joint Chiefs here, myself, the
chairman and the president in terms of how, how you mitigate
risk and how you structure this going forward.

I think the important thing to point out, though, is that the

president has said that that will be a transition force of 35,000 to
50,000, and it's a way station. We--as he pointed out, in the
absence of any new agreement with the Iraqis we have to be at
zero by the end of 2011. So that 50,000 or 35,000 is a way
station on the way to zero.

MR. GREGORY: The president did not want to extend that combat
mission until the end of 2010 as his commanders wanted. Why
not?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, first of all, there were the Joint Chiefs and
others who felt that if you look at the risk and, and also you look
at the strain on the force and the need for additional forces in
Afghanistan, and looking more broadly at, at our forces, there
were those in the Department of Defense who were arguing very
strongly for the 19-month period. So I think, I think this really
was the product of a dialogue between the president and the
chiefs and the commanders.

MR. GREGORY: You've always said it's important to be a realist

about Iraq. President Bush originally thought that the U.S. would
be able to get down to 30,000 troops by September of 2003.
Tom Ricks, the author, as you know, of "Fiasco" and now "The
Gamble," has covered the Pentagon in this war extensively, said
this about the plan to end the combat phase: "I don't think it's
going to happen. Why doesn't he [President Obama] just say as
they stand up, we'll stand down. He is walking in the failed
footsteps of his predecessor, which is being persistently
overoptimistic about Iraq." Let's be clear here. Has the president
said that if things get worse, if things go bad, that all bets are
off? That he would stop the withdrawal?

SEC'Y GATES: What the president has said is that as commander

in chief he always remain--retains the flexibility and the authority
to change a plan or adjust it if he thinks it's in the national
security of the United States. The fact is, I don't think any of us
believe that that will be necessary.

MR. GREGORY: But again, it's possible if there's a deterioration,

he reserves that right to end the withdrawal.

SEC'Y GATES: I would characterize the likelihood of significant

adjustments to this plan as fairly remote.
MR. GREGORY: Fairly remote.

But let's talk about where there are potential flash points in Iraq.
People I've talked to say there are three real areas. In the north
you've got tension between the Arabs and the Kurds; the
prospect of the Kurds, perhaps, trying to split off from Iraq. In
Mosul, a large al-Qaeda in Iraq presence. In the south, in Basra,
oil-rich area, as you know, militia groups fighting over that oil
revenue. In your judgment, what are the prospects of civil war
once U.S. forces come out in large numbers?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, first of all, I think it's important to remember

we have another 18 months, and we are going to have a
substantial force there. I would disagree that there is a, a
significant instability in Basra. I think Basra is one of the real
success stories from Prime Minister Maliki's offensive down there
last year. So I--Mosul is a problem. The Arab-Kurb tensions are
a problem. The need to get an oil law is a problem. So, so there
are problems. We have the, the concerns associated with a
national election at the end of this year, is one of the reasons why
General Odierno wanted to keep those troops there as long as
possible, or a significant number of troops. So there's no
question, we've had a significant military success. There has been
real progress on the political side, but there is clearly unfinished
business in that arena as well. But we will still be there with a
significant presence for another 18 months. And, and as we've
seen just over the last six to 12 months, what we have mostly
seen is significant progress. And I think most of the people most
closely associated with that expect--with Iraq expect that
progress to continue.

MR. GREGORY: There is an agreement between the United States

and Iraq to pull all forces out by 2011. That's what the president
alluded to.

SEC'Y GATES: Right.

MR. GREGORY: What are the prospects that in fact U.S. forces
remain in Iraq beyond that date? Which is possible if you
renegotiated that deal, if the Iraqis said please stay.

SEC'Y GATES: It's, it's really not a renegotiation, it would be a

completely new negotiation. My guess is it would be at the
instigation of the Iraqis, and, and we would just have to wait and
see. At this point it's completely hypothetical. We have a signed
agreement with the Iraqis that says, that says we have to be out
of there...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

SEC'Y GATES: ...by the end of 2011, and that's what we're all
planning on.
MR. GREGORY: General Odierno, Odierno has said he expects
and would want, in fact, U.S. forces there at some level, perhaps
35,000, at least until 2015.

SEC'Y GATES: Well, I, I also have said that I thought perhaps we

would need to have troops there beyond that time. That was all--
what certainly my remarks were before the SOFA was signed.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

SEC'Y GATES: And before we made a commitment to be out of

there by 2011. If we're there beyond that, it'll be because of a
new agreement and negotiated with President Obama and, and
based on what he thinks is in the best interests of our country.

MR. GREGORY: When the United States finally leaves Iraq, will it
have achieved victory?

SEC'Y GATES: I think that we have--as I've said, I think we

have, have had a significant success on the military side. There
is still--the political side is still a work in progress in Iraq. And
frankly, I think before you start using terms like "won" or "lost" or
"victory" or "defeat," those are the kinds of things that I think
historians have to, have to judge. But I think that from the
standpoint of the military mission we will have enjoyed significant
success.
MR. GREGORY: Is it fair to say that when the U.S. leaves
President Obama will not be able to declare either victory or
defeat, that it'll be something of a muddle?

SEC'Y GATES: The question is, what kind of position is Iraq in at

the time that we pull out? If Iraq is basically stable, if the level of
violence remains at the relatively low levels that it is now, if they
have had national elections, if they are an ally of the United
States, I would call that a substantial success.

MR. GREGORY: I want to turn to Afghanistan and Pakistan. You

have said that in fact the greatest military challenge now is
Afghanistan. The president has said that he will commit 17,000
additional U.S. troops. This is how you described Afghanistan
recently: "This is going to be a long slog," you said, "and frankly,
my view is that we need to be very careful about the nature of
the goals we set for ourselves in Afghanistan." That was in
January. Back in December you said about Pakistan that it is on
top of the list when it comes to problems and challenges that the
U.S. faces. Now, most of the security risk is posed from that
border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan where jihadists
and the Taliban are resurgent. In that area, and as you look at
the whole picture, what worries you most?

SEC'Y GATES: I think it's the safe havens on the Pakistani side of
the border not just for al-Qaeda, but for the Taliban, for the
Haqqani network, for Gulbaddin Hekmatyar and these other
affiliated groups that are all working together. They're into--
they're separate groups, but they're all working together. And,
and I think as long as, as they have a safe haven to operate
there, it's going to be a problem for us in Afghanistan. After all,
20 years ago I was on the other side of that border as deputy
director of CIA fighting the Soviets, and we had the safe haven in
Pakistan. And let me tell you, it made a big difference.

MR. GREGORY: Is it sustainable, this policy of covert operations

targeting the Taliban and other jihadists through covert
measures, at a time--and doing so, as I say, through covert
measures at a time when, when the Pakistani leadership thinks
it's destabilizing the country?

SEC'Y GATES: I'm not going to get into any intelligence

operations. I will just say that I think that the key here is our
being able to cooperate with and enable the Pakistanis to be able
to deal with this problem on their own sovereign territory. I
believe, based on my talks with the Pakistanis here in Washington
this week, this past week, that, that they have--they clearly now
understand that what's going on up there in that border area is
as big a risk to the stability of Pakistan as it is a problem for us in
Afghanistan.

MR. GREGORY: The, the overall consequence--the trouble and

consequences of, of jihadists making significant gains in either
Afghanistan or Pakistan is perhaps more acute in Pakistan given
its nuclear potential. True?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, as long as we're in Afghanistan and as long

as the Afghan government has the support of dozens and dozens
of countries who are providing military support, civilian support in
addition to us, we are providing a level of stability in Afghanistan
that at least prevents it from being a safe haven...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

SEC'Y GATES: ...from which plots against the United States and
the Europeans and others can be, can be put together. So that
border area, particularly on the Pakistani side, is, is the most
worrisome

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you specifically about Afghanistan.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in The
Washington Post Thursday about what the U.S. strategy has
been up until now: "To create," he says, "a, a central
government, help it extend its authority over the entire country
and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and
democratic society. That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan."
How does the strategy have to change in Afghanistan?

SEC'Y GATES: I--first of all, we're reviewing exactly that in the

administration right now. That's what the Pakistanis and the
Afghans were in town for was to participate in that review. We're
talking to the Europeans, to our allies, we're bringing in an awful
lot of people to get different points of view as we go through this,
this review of what our strategy ought to be. And I often get
asked, well, how long will those 17,000 be there? Will more go
in? All that depends on the outcome of, of this strategy review
that I hope will be done in a few weeks.

MR. GREGORY: Let me turn to Iran. David Sanger from The New
York Times in his book "The Inheritance" talks about the legacy of
the Iraq war with regard to Iran, and he writes this: "It may turn
out that one of the great post-Iraq paradoxes was that in crying
wolf about Iraq, the American intelligence community found itself
unable to raise the alarm about Iran." And his point is there were
no weapons of, of mass destruction in Iraq, and yet Iran has been
able to progress with a nuclear capability short of, of a nuclear
bomb but with kind of a virtual bomb, which is just being on the
brink of having an actual weapons stockpile. The question is
this: Is it possible to get Iran to abandon its weapons program
short of some kind of grand bargain? In other words, bigger
carrots and bigger sticks?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, first of all, I don't think that whatever one--
however one might criticize the war in Iraq, I don't think that
either the last administration or the current one have been
distracted from the growing problem with Iran and its nuclear
program in the least over the last number of years. We worried
about it well before even the Bush administration. So I, I think
that there has been a continuing focus on how do you get the
Iranians to walk away from a nuclear weapons program? They're
not close to a stockpile, they're not close to a weapon at this
point and so there is some time. And the question is whether you
can increase the level of the sanctions and the cost to the
Iranians of pursuing that program at the same time you show
them an open door if they want to engage with the Europeans,
with us and so on if they walk away from that program. Our
chances of being successful, it seems to me, are a lot better at
$35 or $40 oil than they were at $140 oil because there are
economic costs to this program, they do have economic
challenges at home.

MR. GREGORY: You do see the need, though, for a--some kind of
strategic relationship between the U.S. and Iran?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, I think that--that's really up to the Iranians.

I've been--as I like to say, I've been in this search for the elusive
Iranian moderate for 30 years. I'm still looking.

MR. GREGORY: We've got a few more minutes, and I want to go

through as quickly as we can some other really important topics.
The first is Mexico, a major threat on the border with Mexico
because of a widening drug war there. The Economist magazine
wrote this startling synopsis, and they call it "Who's in charge?
The police chief in Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's border with
America, resigned after drug gangs, who had murdered his
deputy, threatened to kill one of his officers every 48 hours until
he quit." What's going on there, and how big of a national
security threat is this for the U.S.?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, I think that what is important is that

President Calderon of Mexico, perhaps for the first time, has, has
taken on the battle against these cartels. And because of
corruption in the police and so on, he sent the federal army of
Mexico into the fight. The cartels are retaliating. I think we are
beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we
have in the past. Some of the old biases against cooperation with
our--between our militaries and so on I think are being set aside.

MR. GREGORY: You mean providing military supporting?

SEC'Y GATES: Providing them with, with training, with, with

resources, with reconnaissance and surveillance kinds of
capabilities; but just cooperation, including in intelligence. But it
clearly is a serious problem, and, and--but what I think people
need to point out is the courage that Calderon has shown in
taking this on, because one of the reasons it's gotten as bad as it
has is because his predecessors basically refused to do that.

MR. GREGORY: The global economy. Director of national

intelligence Dennis Blair said in fact that the global recession and
economic turmoil and instability had outpaced terrorism as the
most urgent threat facing the United States. What's your
assessment?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, I wouldn't disagree with that. I think that

they're both very real. But the global economy is clearly a much
broader kind of threat to international stability and international
cooperation. Terrorism is a much more, I think, limited and
defined threat. They're both real. The economic threat clearly
affects many, many more people and countries.

MR. GREGORY: Where's Russia going?

SEC'Y GATES: That's a good question. That's not entirely clear.

As I said in the last administration, for the first time in American
history you had secretary of state and secretary of defense both
with doctorates in Russian history, and we didn't have a clue with
what was going on. I, I, I personally believe that the Russians
are trying to come back from what they considered the ultimate
humiliation of the collapse--not only of the Soviet Union, but of
the Russian empire. And, and I think Prime Minister Putin feels
this more acutely than Medvedev. Maybe it's an age thing. But
he is clearly determined to assert Russia's role as a key
international player and as, as a country that can block anything
that it doesn't like. And, and in many areas if we don't go
through Russia, they won't cooperate with us. So I think Russia's
a real challenge. I think like the vice president said in Munich at
a security conference, there is a chance to reset the relationship
because there are a number of areas where we have common
interests. For example, arms control. So I think we'll be looking
at that, we'll be looking for opportunities to see if we can make
some progress with the Russians. But, but it's been tough.

MR. GREGORY: How long will you stay as secretary of defense

under President Obama?

SEC'Y GATES: Well, I think that's probably up to the president.

MR. GREGORY: In your mind, though, would you stay for his
entire first term?

SEC'Y GATES: That would be a challenge.

MR. GREGORY: Do you have a date certain in your mind of when

you'd like to go?

SEC'Y GATES: No.

MR. GREGORY: There's some thought you might stay maybe a

year and a day, and that's it.

SEC'Y GATES: No date in mind.

MR. GREGORY: What's the difference between working--what's

different between working for President Obama vs. President
Bush?

SEC'Y GATES: That sounds like the subject of a good book.

MR. GREGORY: Is that a book you're planning on writing? Are
they different presidents? Do they have different styles, different
temperaments?

SEC'Y GATES: Oh, sure.

MR. GREGORY: What's the major difference to you?

SEC'Y GATES: I--that's--it's really hard to say. I think that, I

think that probably President Obama is, is somewhat more
analytical, and, and, he makes sure he hears from everybody in
the room on an issue. And if they don't speak up, he calls on
them.

MR. GREGORY: A marked difference from his predecessor?

SEC'Y GATES: President Bush was interested in hearing different

points of view but didn't go out of his way to make sure
everybody spoke if they hadn't, if they hadn't spoken up before.

MR. GREGORY: Secretary Gates, we look forward to reading that

book and talking to you about it. Thanks for being here.

SEC'Y GATES: Thank you.

MR. GREGORY: And coming next: the economy, the president's

budget and the Republican Party, all topics for our roundtable:
Harold Ford Jr., Mike Murphy, Dee Dee Myers and Joe
Scarborough. They're next, only on MEET THE PRESS.
(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: Our roundtable weighs in on a busy political

week--the budget, the future of the Republican Party and more--
after this brief station break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: We are back and we are joined now by Harold

Ford Jr., Joe Scarborough, Dee Dee Myers and Mike Murphy.

Welcome, all of you.

Well, here it is. It's not a, a big document for $3.6 trillion, but it
is a significant document. "A New Era of Responsibility:
Renewing America's Promise." And this is no ordinary budget.
This is how David Leonhardt described it in The New York Times
this week: "The budget that President Obama proposed is
nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of
economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his
supporters. ... More than anything else, the proposals seek to
reverse the rapid increase in economic inequality over the last 30
years."

Joe Scarborough, tax increases and a real focus on, if you like,
wealth transfer from the wealthy to the middle class.
MR. JOE SCARBOROUGH: If you like wealth transfer, this could
be great.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: The, the thing though is I keep hearing

people saying that this is a bold step forward, it is a new
direction. I think, as a fiscal conservative, it's more of the same.
For people to say that George Bush didn't engage in stimulus
spending over the past eight years--I would say reckless
spending--when you had two wars, tax cuts, a $7 trillion Medicare
drug benefit plan and, and the biggest increase in domestic
spending since LBJ, they--the Bush administration was about as
reckless as it got. So to say that we're turning the page and
we're actually going to double what George Bush did or triple
what George Bush did doesn't seem like a new direction to me.

MR. GREGORY: But, but, Mike Murphy, there is a fundamental

shift here in the approach that Washington has basically been
governed by for 30 years.

MR. MIKE MURPHY: Sure.

MR. GREGORY: It's a redefinition of government's role.

MR. MURPHY: Oh, it's an absolute earthquake ideologically. I

mean, he was elected not--he didn't only win the election, in the
House and Senate he has almost unstopped power. I mean,
Republicans now are as close to irrelevant in Washington as we've
been. We're kind of like eunuchs invited to a wild party at the
Playboy mansion, you know. We get to watch, we have very
detailed opinions about everything, but we're not participating.
The problem is it allows him to lurch ideologically with
tremendous speed.

And what bothers me about this is--as a fiscal conservative I

don't like the policy, but we, we lost the election. OK. I hear all
this talk about responsibility and sacrifice, but this thing
massively increases public debt from about 8 trillion to 15 over
10 years, and it's all going to be paid for by the mythical rich who
already pay that 5 percent, 62 percent of the taxes. So fine, I
say, raise all their taxes. But I think everybody over about
$50,000, if we're going to go into a big spending new French
republic of America with a huge public sector, should pay a little
more taxes. Get everybody to buy into this.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. MURPHY: Because it is a huge shift in the size of

government.

MR. GREGORY: Let's break down some of the, the tax increases
from more of a conservative point of view, as reported by the
New York--excuse me, by the LA Times this week. "Brian Riedl,"
the coverage--the article points out, "a budget analyst at the
Heritage Foundation, says `Obama's plan amounts to an unfair
redistribution of the tax burden.' He said that the top 20 percent
of taxpayers now pay 80 percent of all taxes collected by the
government. And 40 percent of households pay no income tax.
Under President Obama's plan, he said, the top 20 percent of tax
filers would pay 90 percent of all taxes, and the number of
families who owe no tax would climb to near 50 percent."

The question, Dee Dee, is in this kind of economic crisis--the

Obama administration says there's no tax increases till 2011;
nevertheless, is this what you do in the middle of a recession?

MS. DEE DEE MYERS: Well, the--like--as you just stated, the tax
increases don't kick in until 2011 theoretically, at which time the
Obama administration's projections are that we'll be back on a
path toward pretty robust growth. There's some question as to
whether those projections are actually going to hold up, whether
we will actually be growing at a 3 or 4 percent rate by the time
it's...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah. I don't know that there--anybody's saying

there'd be robust growth by that point.

MS. MYERS: Well, 3 or 4 percent is, is pretty robust.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. MYERS: That's what's in, in that document.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MS. MYERS: And so that raises some, some interesting

questions. But Obama's working very hard to keep his promise,
which is not to raise taxes on the 95 percent of, of middle and
working class and lower class taxpayers.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MS. MYERS: Can he pull this off without going back on that at
some point and sharing the sacrifice more broadly?

MR. MURPHY: Because he has to pay for it with massive debt.

That's the dishonest part about it.

MR. GREGORY: And we're going to get into that in a minute.

Yeah. But...

FMR. REP. HAROLD FORD JR. (D-TN): Let's put some of this in
perspective.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

REP. FORD: In 1980, the top 1 percent of earners in the country

controlled about 8 percent of the total economic pie in the
country. Twenty-six years later, the top 1 percent now controls
almost a quarter of the nation's total economic pie.
Two, back in 1993 when Bill Clinton passed his first budget, there
were cries that if indeed it went through, the tax increases on the
top earners in the country would cause a massive redirection of
wealth from investment in the country, it would cause people to
lose jobs, it would cause the government to run debt. As a
matter of fact, the exact opposite happened. I remind people
that no Republican, not one in the House voted in favor of that
budget.

MS. MYERS: (Unintelligible)

REP. FORD: What happened? The largest peacetime expansion

that we've ever had.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: But, but, but, Harold, you're, you're, you're

just making Mike--you're making Mike Murphy's point, though,
here. Back in the 1990s...

REP. FORD: No, I'm actually making a different point.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: No, you're not. You--in the 1990s there

was a leveling wind that was called the Republican Congress in
1995. And I say this time and time again about this current
crisis, this is what concerns me. You had Bill Clinton who loathed
those of us that were in the Congress. Congress loathed Bill
Clinton. But you know what, at the end of the 1990s it worked.
We balanced each other out.
REP. FORD: But...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: We had the best of Clinton economics, the

best of Republican economics.

REP. FORD: But the--but...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Hold on. The economy exploded and our

economy was only 18 percent of GDP. That was conservative
leadership from Republicans and Democrats.

REP. FORD: But the same, but the same complaints...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: There's no balance now.

REP. FORD: The same complaints that come today came then,
that we would find ourselves in a position a few years down the
road where government would be, government would be too
large, that somehow or another people would not invest in the
country.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Well, Harold, Republicans balanced that

out.

REP. FORD: The reality is that this is the most--this budget,

whether you like it or not, is a totally different construct. This
budget believes that government has a constructive, positive and
even practical role in, in trying to not only correct markets but
redirect them...
MR. SCARBOROUGH: Republicans believe that.

REP. FORD: No, no. But, but you can't...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Harold, that's the false stories that you've

been making...

REP. FORD: But you can't have it that--you can't have it every
which way.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: ...or that Barack Obama's been making.

REP. FORD: You can't have it every which way.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)...that's the difference. This is so

big. I mean, we're quasi-nationalizing the auto companies.
We're taking the, the federal debt in the next 10 years greater
than the total federal debt of the history of the country, and we're
paying for it by taxing the people who pay 62 percent of the
taxes now, that 5 percent, which still is not nearly enough. It's,
it's--that's what's dishonest about this. If we're going to build a
French republic of a public sector that big, let's be honest with
the American people...

MR. GREGORY: All right.

MR. MURPHY: ...and let everybody get in the boat and pay for it.
MR. GREGORY: Let, let me get in...

REP. FORD: Obama has said he's not going to take us down the
same path we've gone the last eight years. We--the--in
November voters said, "We want a different path." If it doesn't
work, he's indicated, "I own this budget. I own this economy,
and we may have to go in and get...(unintelligible)..."

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)

MR. SCARBOROUGH: (Unintelligible)

MR. GREGORY: Let me, let me get in here. I want to, I want to
challenge another assertion in this budget, and that is that the
president has said that he has identified $2 trillion in spending
that he will cut back. He will cut $2 trillion in programs. Again,
the LA Times reported this week, is that really going to happen?
This is the piece: "For all the talk of fiscal responsibility,
Congress is not ready to mend its free-spending ways. Exhibit
A: The House passed a huge spending bill left over from the last
year that increased expenditures by 8 percent. And it's laden
with thousands of pet projects." The president's not happy about
that, by the way.

Here's Judd Gregg, the senator from New Hampshire--was going

to be Commerce secretary, decided he didn't agree with the
president well enough. He says this: "The $2 trillion in savings
touted by the president is a hollow number based on tax
increases and reduced war funding. Where is the spending
restraint? Instead, government spending continues to grow and
expand, while the economy continues to suffer."

Dee Dee, in this budget, $600 billion as a down payment to get to

that goal of universal health care that was first initiated under
President Clinton's administration.

MS. MYERS: Right, and that's not all. I mean, that--this is a

trillion-dollar program...

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MS. MYERS: ...so Congress is going to have to identify additional

sources of funding. But what the president has said is we cannot
fix this economy, we cannot have long-term sustainable growth
in--unless we fix some of the big problems, starting with health
care. He said that throughout the campaign, he said he was
going to do it. Now he's not only taking on the economy, but he's
restructuring it by fixing health care, by switching to an--a green
and a foreign oil free energy policy and by fixing education. We
know we can't be competitive unless we fix those things. And so
he's gambling. He's going to say, try to do it all at one time. It's
a, it's a huge hill.

MR. MURPHY: There's a, there's a huge leap of faith from the

White House speech writing room when we hear words like "fix."
To the pol--you know, whether this'll fix anything, you're right,
the numbers are bad because it does assume a lot more
economic growth than almost any economist. Six hundred billion
dollars is a nickel payment on what a massive health care redo
will cost. And his defense spending assumes a peaceful and
happy world where we can get way back from what it's been like
over the last five years to the low levels of the early Clinton
administration. So there's a lot of pie in the sky numbers here.

I will give him some credit, though. Cutting the Medicaid for--or
Medicare for wealthy people means testing entitlements. He's
right, we should do it. Cutting some of these ag subsidies. But
this thing is very low on spending cuts and very high on phony
rhetoric about future revenue, and it's sad because I--it's the
beginning of Barack Obama turning into just another politician--
this time of the left, not of the right--which is a huge mistake for
him because there's so much invested in this guy.

MS. MYERS: (Unintelligible)

MR. GREGORY: Where--but here--where are the cuts? Where

are the cuts? We have seen in the stimulus bill, people in the
White House will acknowledge that the appropriators, the
Democrats in--especially on the House side wrote some of the
spending into the stimulus bill. It got away from the White
House. We have now an omnibus spending bill that appears to
have gotten away from the White House. Can he get these cuts
of $2 trillion?
MR. SCARBOROUGH: No. And, and this is what's so
disappointing is the, the one thing that I really was heartened by
that this White House has done over the past month is talk about
entitlement reform. If you talk to, talk to people who really
understand the economy, understand our budget process, that's
the real challenge. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid said we're not
going to do that. There aren't tough choices being made. And
when--if you want to talk about phony, look at all the
congressmen who are lecturing bankers every day because they
didn't take care of their balance sheets over the past eight years.
Look at what they're doing, they're spending seriously. It is as
reckless as it's ever been and it, it's not a false choice that Barack
Obama puts out there. It's not a choice of doing absolutely
nothing or spending more money than we've ever spent before.
There should be a middle ground. But the balance sheets are
going askew. They're trying again to do what bankers tried to do
and Wall Street tried to do over the past eight years, suspend the
basic rules of arithmetic.

MR. GREGORY: Harold, the deficit, the debt picture, talking about
a reality check here, this is how The Washington Post reports in
terms of what we're looking at: "The numbers in the new budget
are unlike anything the country and its elected leadership are
used to dealing with. Not only will the current deficit reach $1.75
trillion," that's 12 percent of GDP, "next year's will also top a
trillion dollars and the deficits will remain about $500 billion until
fiscal year 2019." Will Congress simply choke on the size of those
numbers? The promise is to cut the deficit in half by the end of
the first term. Realistic?

REP. FORD: If he doesn't, he will pay a political price.

Remember, much of what he's put forward in--hopeful that the
Congress will pass and negotiate with him is, is--revolves around
two things, jobs and housing. How do we create more jobs and
create more growth and opportunity? Some people call it tax
increases, other people call it investment in, in places that will
allow the economy to grow: innovation in energy, innovation in
health care and even how we teach kids, and investment in the
country going forward, particularly in infrastructure and at the
state and local level. If this works, it will get the economy
moving again. If it does not, the president will have to answer
these questions a year and a half from now. I applaud him for
taking the risk. It'd be easy to say we're going to do things as
usual. I, I, I part with my friend Joe in this regard. Some of the
spending is enormous, but I would ask any who oppose, what
direction or what alternative do we have? The global economy--
global economies around the globe have slowed. The contraction
in Europe, South America and Asia have forced us to do things
that we've not been accustomed to doing in this country. We've
run debt, but not like we're going to run. If this gamble pays off,
the president will make the country stronger, more profitable and
more prosperous. If it doesn't, he'll have to answer to voters'
questions next November.

MR. GREGORY: The president, the president also...

REP. FORD: And Mike and Joe may be right.

MR. GREGORY: He's also spoiling for a fight. His radio address
Saturday really summed that up. Listen.

(Videotape, Saturday)

PRES. OBAMA: I realize that passing this budget won't be easy.

Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also
represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know
these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists
who are invested in the old ways of doing business, and I know
they're gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them
is this: So am I. The system we have now might work for the
powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington
for far too long, but I don't.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Dee Dee, he's saying, "Bring it on."

MS. MYERS: He's saying, "Bring it on." There was a little bit of
"you want a piece of me?" in the tone of, of, of that comment.
And he knows this is going to be a fight, he's not shying away
from it. He knows he has a couple things going for him,
particularly...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Who, who's going to fight him? That's like

me going up to a seven-year-old and saying, "I know this fight is
not going to be easy."

MS. MYERS: Well...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: He's going to pass this overwhelmingly. It

is going to be easy.

REP. FORD: (Unintelligible)

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)...two reasons.

MS. MYERS: Well, it--no--I, I--look, there's Democrats in

Congress who have problems with different provisions and there's
Republicans in Congress who have problems with different
provisions, and putting it together in a way that meets his goals
is, is not going to be--it's not a slam dunk. This is going to be a
process.

MR. MURPHY: The, the idea--it's just such a framing trick,

though, that he's going to go take on the lobbyists and business
as usual in D.C. A bunch of business as usual in D.C. and a
whole army of lobbyists are on his side of this.

MS. MYERS: Yeah.

MR. MURPHY: He's got every labor lobbyist in town...

MS. MYERS: That's a big change, though.

MR. MURPHY: Yeah. No, no, there's a massive...

MS. MYERS: That's a big change for Democrats.

MR. MURPHY: ...Barack, left, bigger government lobbying army

that's, that's--can hardly wait to turn us into France with the
public sector's co-pay.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Well, even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

has, has been supporting Barack Obama through that stimulus
package. This is--again, what he's having to do now, though, is
he's having to frame this, he's having to try to remain the
outsider when he owns this town. You know, I always used to
say in politics nobody stops you if you're going 90 miles an hour.
Barack Obama has to continue to seem like the outsider that's
going 90 miles an hour fighting the establishment when he is the
establishment. He owns this town, he owns this government, he
gets whatever he wants.

REP. FORD: I differ a bit in this regard. I think, to Dee Dee's

point, he will have to take on some Democratic interests. I was a
Blue Dog member in the Congress. There will be some resistance
around some of the spending. And even as recently as last week
some of my former colleagues expressed concern about the
cramdown provisions forcing banks to modify, modify some of the
home, home loans that exist. Two, he will have to fight some of
the Democratic business lobbyists here in this town, some of the
ag lobbyists. Kent Conrad even indicated that some of the, the
rhetoric the president used in his State of the Union around
agriculture and some of the subsidies there, that he has some
concerns about that. Max Baucus even indicated that charitable
deduction reductions that the president is offering as--or I should
say that came out of his tax package is going to--they're going to
have to be reviewed and might have to be modified. So for the
president to make the comments he did, it was--had a little bit of
a "bring it on" kind of a...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. FORD: ...a Pittsburgh Steeler kind of approach to the Super

Bowl. But at the same time, this president is making it clear to
Washington "I'm ready to fight for my priorities."

MR. GREGORY: Right. I, I want to...

MR. MURPHY: I think the old George W. Bush thing was left on
the prompter.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. MURPHY: That kind of snappy "bring it on."

MR. GREGORY: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

MR. MURPHY: That sounded a little familiar to me.

MR. GREGORY: I want, I want to talk about the Republicans.

REP. FORD: Should Dee Dee and I leave, then?

MS. MYERS: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: No, no, no. I want to talk...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: I was just going to say let's not.

MS. MYERS: Yeah.

MR. GREGORY: Let's talk about Republicans, because one of the,

the--and Stephen Hayes does it in the Weekly Standard, points
out what the strategy has been so far for Republicans, which is to
not go after President Obama specifically. He writes, "This has
been the Republican strategy since Obama took office: Refrain
from criticizing the president directly, praise his stated desire for
bipartisanship; trash congressional Democrats as irresponsibly
liberal and poor stewards of taxpayer dollars; offer alternative
solutions to the country's problems even if the media pay them
no attention. The reasons for doing this are plain. The country
was broadly enthusiastic about Obama's inauguration, and his
popularity remains high." How high, you ask? Well, look at the
numbers. New Washington Post/ABC News poll, a 68 percent
approval rating. The president's got some juice right now. But
here was Rush Limbaugh at the CPAC conference. This was the
Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington this
week. Here's what he had to say about the president.

(Videotape, Saturday)

MR. RUSH LIMBAUGH: What is so strange about being honest

and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to
restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and
individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that
to succeed?

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: The question, Mike Murphy, is are these

principled objections, ideological differences about the role of
government? Or is this calculation? And, and are Republicans
open to the idea of hey, this is--as Warren Buffett said, this is
Pearl Harbor for the economy. This is like during the Iraq war,
Americans have to come together here of all parties and all
stripes.

MR. MURPHY: Right, sure. No, Republicans want the country to

succeed, though we have a legitimate conservative-liberal
ideological fight with the people in power right now. So our job is
to be a constructive opposition when we make our ideological
case, but we don't be simply obstructionists for its own sake. It's
also a little bit academic because the truth is, as I said earlier,
most of the power is Democratic. And I think the real issue for
the Republicans is we have to step back now and figure out how
we modernize conservatism for this century. And you know,
we're kind of like--it's like Russia 1920. We've got a lot of
warlords running around, each with an armored car and 50
troops. You know, Rush is one of them, there's Newt.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. MURPHY: All these guys. It's the nature of it. And they're
going to, they're going to go out and--and it's all right, it's a
constructive discussion. But in the--at the end of the day here's
the one statistic we all got to remember: the country's
changing. Ronald Reagan won in 1980 with 51 percent of the
vote. We all worship Ronald Reagan. But if that election had
been held with the current demographics of America today,
Ronald Reagan would've gotten 47 percent of the vote.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. MURPHY: The math is changing. Anglo vote's 74 percent

now, not 89. And if we don't modernize conservatism, we're
going to have a party of 25 percent of the vote going to
Limbaugh rallies, enjoying every, every applause line, ripping the
furniture up. We're going to be in permanent minority status.
MR. GREGORY: Joe, how do Republicans constructively oppose
this president, hold his feet to the fire, act as a constructive
opposition party?

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Well, they do what Republicans did, what

conservatives did in 1993. The reason I ran in 1994 was very
simple. When Bill Clinton put that budget plan out that I loathed,
I turned on C-SPAN, a lot of people were tuned in, and we
watched John Kasich say, "We don't like Bill Clinton's plan. Here is
our budget plan." And I sat there and I watched him talk about
an alternative choice. That's what this Republican Party has to do
right now. They can't just say no, with, with apologies to Rush
Limbaugh. They have to come up with a constructive plan.

Here's the problem, though. Republicans owned Washington for

the past eight years. They failed miserably. The people that
were running the Republican Party for the past eight years on
Capitol Hill still seem to be running the Republican Party on
Capitol Hill. So I, I wonder if Americans really are going to look
in that direction for a new change.

MS. MYERS: Right. Big problem is they don't have any leaders,
they don't have an opposition program and they're afraid to take
on President Obama directly. This was something that we faced
in 1994 from the other end. You know, we, we came up with a
strategy for fighting back against Newt Gingrich and the rising
Republican revolution by saying we're going to take on
Reaganomics, but we're not going to take on Ronald Reagan.
We're never going to mention President Reagan by name, but
we're going to go after Reaganomics. It failed. You have--you
know, you can't separate the person from the program when
somebody's as popular and high profile as the president.

MR. MURPHY: I agree with that. There's one glimmer of hope,

though, and it's a huge glimmer. I thought Obama was going to
go to the center and wipe us out. He's going left. That gives us
a huge opportunity to rebuild conservatism in a positive way, if
we're smart.

MR. GREGORY: And as--Harold, do you agree with that? Do you

think he--it appeared that he'd more centrist. Has he gone left
with this budget, particularly?

REP. FORD: I don't think so. If, if you think about it, what other
direction could he have gone? If he had gone the way that some
suggested, some are suggesting here, it would've been perceived
as a slap in the face of the 53 percent of Americans who voted for
him. Clearly, if those numbers are right we've seen on the
screen, 68 percent of the Americans approve of the direction he's
headed, 50 percent approve of the direction the congressional
Dems are headed, the country is ready for a different--Mike, you
said it well. The demographic changes, maybe the country is
ready to go in a different direction. And if this direction proves to
land us in an era of prosperity and responsibility, as that
document states...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. FORD: ...the president will win. He has indicated he owns

this economy, owns this budget and will have to answer for it in a
year and a half.

MR. MURPHY: He, he, he is, he is betting the most beautiful

franchise in politics right now on the politics of 1980s France,
which I think is going to prove to be a huge mistake.

MR. GREGORY: I want to, I, I want to, I want...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: He is. You know, that's the amazing thing.

MS. MYERS: Well, or 2009 America.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: I'm sorry. We've been down this road

before, it doesn't work. And he had a chance to go to the middle.

MR. GREGORY: No.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: That's what Republican strategists like Mike

Murphy and I were the most concerned about.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: Not a Republican strategist, but we were
concerned if he went to the middle, if he brought enough
Republicans along with that first budget out, outline that he sent
to the Hill that Nancy Pelosi said "No, you're not going to do it,"
he would've crippled the Republican Party.

REP. FORD: Can I say, David...

MR. GREGORY: Real quick, because I want to get to these...

REP. FORD: David, when Rush Limbaugh made the comment

about how he's rooting against...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

REP. FORD: ...Barack Obama because, he said right after that,

because Democrats rooted against George Bush. Remember, a
hundred Democrats in the House supported President Bush in his
effort to go to war, a majority of Senate Democrats supported
him. No Republican in the House and only three in the Senate--
as much as we are concerned about this, and we can debate the
finer points of whether this is a different direction or not, almost
60 percent of the Senate is Democrat, 250 Democrats in the
House. This president has a responsibility to move this country in
a new direction.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

REP. FORD: Whether we like it or not...

MR. GREGORY: I want...

REP. FORD: ...it will be determined in large part by what happens

next November.

MR. GREGORY: I want to talk about the government's role in

bailing out this economy. And we keep a running tab here of
federal bailout and stimulus spending since February of 2008.
And I want to put it on the screen and, and have everybody
absorb this. The total is $2.3 trillion. Let's go through it. The
first stimulus in February of 2008 was $168 billion, money for
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and all, all of which has been drawn
down, including the latest $400 billion. AIG, the insurance
company, $150 billion, probably more to come. The financial
bailout, both ends of it--$350, $350--$700 billion, some of that
for the auto bailout. Bank of America and Citi got $45 billion
each, now the government's going to come in and take 40
percent of Citi. The Obama stimulus package, $787 billion. The
housing plan, $75 billion. That's $2.3 trillion. Seven hundred
and fifty billion dollars additional in this document for additional
bailout money for the banks.

Meantime, what metric do we have to see how people--what

people think of that government intervention? The Dow is one
metric. It closed on Friday at its lowest level since 1997, just
over 7,000.

Harold, has the president yet done a good job persuading

Americans to be confident about the future of this economy?

REP. FORD: The Dow is an indicator. It's down 19.5 percent for
the first two months of the year, the worst in its 113-year
history. The president has some work to do. I think that
Secretary Geithner had a tough, a tough last two weeks as he
tried to outline where we were going. They will get it right here
in the next two weeks. If they don't, they will, they will have to
make a, a massive change, because it's clear investors and others
are very concerned about the direction that we're headed.

Now, Christine Romer, the, the chief economist in the White

House, indicated that as we--first quarter's going to be very, very
difficult. As we get later in the year, that stimulus package will
work its way through. In large part, what I'm trying to say here
today, if this works the president will find himself in a stronger
position at the end of the year, beginning of next, to do some
different things. If it does not, that metric that you point to...

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

REP. FORD: ...the scoreboard, the Dow, will cripple him.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: But this isn't...

MR. GREGORY: Joe--I'm sorry...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: I'm sorry.

MR. GREGORY: ...I just want ask this question, which is--and I
think it's a fundamental question. If you look at those numbers
of how much the government's spending, will the American
people continue to support this president even if he fails in some
of these efforts to revive the economy?

MR. SCARBOROUGH: No, they won't.

MS. MYERS: No.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: And, and they won't. And here's the thing
that bothers me with what I've heard from my good friend
Harold, and we are good friends. But he said, "Well, if it doesn't
work, you know, in 2010 Republicans will take over." Yes, and we
will have added $4 or $5 trillion more dollars to our national
debt. We were already at $12 trillion because of Republican
recklessness. We will add $5 or $6 trillion more over the next
decade because of Democratic recklessness. And yes, so maybe
Republicans win in 2010.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: But what does that do to the long-term

economy of this economy?
REP. FORD: But...(unintelligible)...can't go over.

MR. MURPHY: (Unintelligible)

MR. GREGORY: Ten, 10 seconds, Mike. Ten seconds.

MR. MURPHY: The great irony, all the Democratic talk about
recklessly rushing into Iraq without thinking, stopping and
thinking it through; they're making the same mistake now with
massive economic spending.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: And, and for the record...

MR. GREGORY: All right.

MR. MURPHY: We got to slow down, slow down and think it

through.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: ...go back and look at what House

Republicans said about...

MR. GREGORY: All right.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: ...TARP before it passed.

MR. GREGORY: We got to, we got...

MR. SCARBOROUGH: They were right.

MR. GREGORY: We got to leave it there.

REP. FORD: If it works, if it works it's a good thing for...

MR. GREGORY: We're out of time.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: If it doesn't, then...(unintelligible)...

REP. FORD: (Unintelligible)

MR. GREGORY: More, more of this, by the way, coming up on our

Web extra, our Take Two. Thanks very much, we'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: We're going to have to continue our discussion

with our roundtable online, and ask them some questions that
our viewers have submitted via e-mail and Twitter in our MEET
THE PRESS Take Two Web extra. Plus, read an excerpt from Dee
Dee's book, a terrific book, "Why Women Should Rule the World."
Also, look for updates from me throughout the week. It is all on
our Web site at mtp.msnbc.com.

That's all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's
MEET THE PRESS.

Meet the Press Video, March 1, 2009

MTP Take Two, Web Extra on the Economy