Transcript: Sen. Trent Lott on Fox News Sunday
Sunday, February 10, 2002
WASHINGTON — Following is an excerpted transcript of Fox News Sunday, Feb. 10, 2002.
TONY SNOW, HOST, FOX NEWS SUNDAY: As we mentioned earlier, last week Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle pronounced the economic stimulus package dead on arrival, and he blamed the Republicans. Here with the Republican view of that and other issues, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott.
The Senate is not going to vote on an economic stimulus package, at least for now. Do you think there is going to be a vote at any time this year?
U.S. SENATOR TRENT LOTT, R-MISS., SENATE MINORITY LEADER: I kind of doubt it. I guess there could be. But we should have done this two months ago. We could have done some short- term positive things, some tax cuts that would have caused growth in the economy. But Senator Daschle spent two months really trying to find a way to keep us from getting a direct vote.
As usual, John Breaux said what he had on his mind, and that was that Senator Daschle pulled it because he was afraid some of the Republican amendments would get the 60 votes that were needed to be passed. But, you know, procedurally in the Senate it's very hard to get something up if the majority leader decides that he is going to block it.
Now, let me just say on a positive side, this now makes a balanced budget this year, in spite of the additional spending that's necessary on defense and homeland security, we are within striking distance of having a balanced budget this coming year. So we should now make an extra effort to do that.
SNOW: So you will insist — you will try to get Republicans to vote as a block to make sure that there is a balanced budget coming out of the Senate?
LOTT: We are within, depending on whose figures you really believe, $20 to $50 billion of a balance. Congress, I'm sure, will mix the numbers a little bit in defense and homeland security.
But if we're that close, we ought to make an extra effort, if we could do what we need to do on defense and homeland security — tax relief for working Americans we've already passed — and have a balanced budget, that would be very positive for long-term interest rates and budget matters.
SNOW: So, if there is no tax cut, no stimulus package, you still think the economy's going to do OK?
LOTT: Well, I hope so. I felt like this was a little bit of a shot into the belly of a limping economy. It's showing signs of improving, and that weakened the ability to get a stimulus package. But I thought we still needed it. And I thought it was unfortunate that Senator Daschle started off the new year in a partisan mode once again.
SNOW: All right. Now, you don't seriously believe that Senator Daschle doesn't want the economy to grow, do you?
LOTT: No. I think he wants it to grow. But he — he came up with what I called "stimulus light." It was light on stimulus and heavy on spending.
Now he says, you know, Republicans wouldn't agree with what they wanted, that we wanted our own package. Well, there was a bipartisan centrist package that passed the House — well, they passed two bills. The second time it was bipartisan. The president signed on to it, a large number of Democrats. And also we had a majority in the Senate for it. But we never got a direct vote on that issue.
So the fact of the matter is, he didn't want the centrist, bipartisan package that we could have passed and that would have been helpful somewhat to the economy.
SNOW: What do you make of all the committee hearings on Enron?
LOTT: Well, you know, some people would say there are too many of them. But the House seems to be doing a pretty good job.
SNOW: Do you think there are too many of them?
LOTT: You know, the Congress has a role, and you can't — it's hard to lump it all in one committee. I did that once or twice in the past, and I'm not sure that's helpful.
SNOW: So you don't think the idea of having a select committee to stand and basically have one big set of hearings with one group of people, that's not the right way to go?
LOTT: Well, I don't think that's going to happen. I understand, in this case, that Senator Daschle is dealing with a lot of chairmen and ranking members that say, well, we have jurisdiction here, there and the other.
But here's my point, it's fine to have hearings. But if this turns into a blame game, pointing fingers, OK, you should have done this, you didn't do that, you got campaign contributions, why didn't you take the extra step, we've accomplished nothing.
We do have an oversight role. What we should do then is move to see what legislation is needed to prevent this in the future to protect employees and stock holders. Deal with this accounting problem.
I do think that to separate the auditing and consulting is something we probably should do. And that's why I joined Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison this past week in introducing a bill that would do just that, among protecting certain pension rights.
SNOW: And are you going to get vote on this?
Is that going to come to the floor to the best of your knowledge?
LOTT: I suspect that we will have some legislation in this are this year. The accounting thing is perhaps controversial, but taking additional steps to allow employees to do more with their own 401(k)s, I think is going to have both House's support.
SNOW: Do you like the idea of limiting the percentage they can hold in any one stock in that 401(k) portfolio to 20 to 25 percent?
LOTT: Well, I think it's some merit to that and we do have that in our bill that we introduced.
SNOW: Now, a couple of things. Billy Tauzin has said he thinks people are going to go to jail over the Enron scandal. Do you agree?
LOTT: You know, the Justice Department is looking at it, the Securities and Exchange Commission is. It looks very bad. The conduct certainly was wrong, perhaps unethical and maybe even illegal. It could be criminal. I think we ought to find out and, if that's what we find, then take the necessary action.
SNOW: Do you think Enron improperly influenced the president's energy plan?
LOTT: I do not, not at all. As a matter of fact, if you look at the energy plan that Senator Daschle and Bingaman have come up with, the part on electricity deregulation, if you will, or the provisions in that area, are much closer to what Enron wanted than what I want. I don't like this idea of taking over the electricity lines by the federal government. I still think that states have a primary role.
SNOW: It's been suggested that Pat Wood ought to step down as head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission because he was on a short list recommended by Kenneth Lay to be on FERC. Should he step aside?
LOTT: I don't think there is anything that would merit that. I don't know about the short list. I know from personal experience early on, he was the president's choice. So, I don't know about a short list. I think he was it from early on in this administration.
SNOW: So it was the president's list, not Ken Lay's?
LOTT: It was the president's choice. Ken Lay did not have anything to do with that.
SNOW: There has also been a controversy about a company called Global Crossing, a telecommunications network that went bankrupt. It gave a lot of money. You got money from both Enron and Global Crossing.
LOTT: Not much for me, though, I might add.
SNOW: Well, do you think there ought to be hearings about Global Crossing?
LOTT: Well, there may be. There have been some allegations of questionable conduct. I hadn't looked at that as much as I have Enron, of course, because there's been so much more attention paid to it.
But, wherever there appears to be some misconduct, you ought to at least have the appropriate government agency look into it. But, I'm not alleging anything of that yet, because I just don't know enough of the details.
SNOW: Do you think Republicans are raising Global Crossing as political cover, because Republicans are under relatively more fire over Enron?
LOTT: I think that obviously there's been some attention given to the bonanza that Terry McAuliffe got from an investment. But he was not in the government. He was private individual. And certainly I'm not raising it because I don't know any allegations we can make at this point. And once again, I think that they had Democrat as well as Republican contacts. So, how are you going to blame one or the other?
The important thing is in most of these cases you can make sure, and I assume that they were legal contributions and there was no improper conduct as a result of that, showing, by the way, that campaign finance laws apparently do work.
SNOW: Speaking of which, campaign finance reform is going to come up in the House of Representatives. Would you like to see the House pass the identical bill that passed the Senate, or would you like it different so this thing could get into a House-Senate conference?
LOTT: Well, I thought that the Senate bill needed a lot of changes, a lot of improvements. I think we could come up with a bill that would be positive in terms of campaign finance laws. I hope the House will come up with some improvements. I think they've got probably 10 amendments on both sides, go to conference and work it out.
Now, some people will say, Oh, woe is me, if it goes into conference, it'll never be heard from again. I don't think that's true. I think that the conference, which is what you normally do between a House and Senate bill, will work out some of the kinks and hopefully improve it.
SNOW: Your prediction: Do you think the president will sign campaign finance reform this year?
LOTT: If it gets to his desk in a form that he has outlined. I mean, he has said what he'd like to have.
I don't think we're going to have paycheck equity. One of the big problems is that this bill as it presently exists is going to create an unlevel, uneven, unfair playing field. Labor, the Sierra Club, various groups are going to be able to continue doing what they always do by the end of the campaign, and it won't be any offsetting ability for the other side to get their message across.
But in — the direct answer to your question, I presume that in the end the president will sign a campaign finance reform bill.
SNOW: Charles Pickering has been nominated to a judgeship on the fifth U.S. circuit court of appeals. He's had hearings. Democrats are saying they think that he has — his background, especially on issues of race, is going to disqualify him. The White House says it's now up to you, Trent Lott, to make sure.
Do you think the White House is washing its hands of its nominee?
LOTT: I don't think they are. Judge Pickering is eminently qualified. He's a sitting district court judge, formerly approved by the Senate. Has been moderate on racial issues all his life. In fact was active in efforts to try, you know, get the Klu Klux Klan under control
in the area that he lived in.
It's not about, you know, him really. It's about the administration's judges. It's a pattern of circuit judges. They picked him to take a shot at because he's one of the first ones that really was going to be moving through.
I think they have considered maybe two or three circuit judges out of 23, so it's bigger than this one individual, who, by the way, who has an excellent, highly qualified rating by ABA.
SNOW: So...
LOTT: It's just that he was the first one where they thought, well, we'll show the administration, we'll show the Republicans what we're going to do to their conservative nominees.
And this is really about the Supreme Court. This is a shot at the president saying, you know, if you come up with a basically a conservative Republican who is pro-life, we're going to take him down.
SNOW: Will he make it or not?
LOTT: I think it's going to be close, but I certainly hope he does. He deserves it. This is a very unfair besmirching of a good man's record.
SNOW: All right. In an interview we're going to carry later in this broadcast, I talked earlier today with the deputy foreign minister of Iran who says, in response to charges that Iran loaded up a ship with weapons headed toward the Palestinian Authority, didn't happen, complete denial.
What do you make of that?
LOTT: Well, those arms, those weapons on that ship came from somewhere, and we have every reason to believe that Iran was involved in that. I guess he gave a categorical denial, but the evidence is to the contrary.
SNOW: So what do you make of that?
LOTT: Well, in all — I guess they're reacting to the charges against them and the president's identified them as a part of the axis of evil. In a way, I guess they're trying to move away from that image. But they've got a lot more to do than just denying a shipload of arms which clearly traced back to their involvement.
SNOW: There's amazing colloquy in the Senate this week over the federal budget, mainly because it had a cartoon in it. Senator Robert Byrd went hard after Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
We're going to show just the beginning of what was a long and colorful argument. We're show you a piece of tape. I want to get your response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
U.S. SENATOR ROBERT BYRD, D-W.V.: I just want to remind you, Mr. Secretary, a lot of us were here before you came. And with all respect to you, you're not Alexander Hamilton.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: What did you make of that?
LOTT: I thought the whole exchange was somewhat strange and bizarre. I mean, they got into a discussion about who had the poorest beginnings, the poorest roots.
Look, senators have a right to ask questions of witnesses and to be aggressive in those questioning, but we also are elected officials to the United States Senate. We need to always make sure that we conduct ourselves appropriately and project a positive image and that, you know, we're courteous in the way we treat our witnesses.
SNOW: Does Senator Byrd owe the witness an apology?
LOTT: Oh, I'd have to review the whole thing and that's clearly up to him. But, you know, I do think once again we are projecting an image to the country, to the world, and I think we need to be careful about that.
SNOW: All right. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, thanks for joining us.
LOTT: Thank you, Tony.
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