THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

Internal Transcript January 28, 2002

INTERVIEW OF THE VICE PRESIDENT

BY CAMPBELL BROWN, NBC NEWS
Mrs. Cheney's Office
Eisenhower Executive Office Building

11:00 A.M. EST

Q Let's start with a subject that I know is one of

your favorite at the moment -- Enron. You've made your
position on this abundantly clear, that you have no
intention of handing over documents to the General
Accounting Office relating to the Energy Task Force. But
over the weekend, Chief of Staff Andy Card, on Meet The
Press, seemed to indicate that there may be some room for
compromise for perhaps handing documents to a congressional
committee, certain documents limiting the information. Is
that something that's being discussed?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we believe we've already
provided a great deal of information. The important thing
here, Campbell, to understand is what we're focused on are
those things that relate to my role as Vice President; that
as Vice President I'm the constitutional officer provided
for in the Constitution. And the General Accounting Office
has authority over statutory agencies, but not over
constitutional officers. That's not the way their statute
is set up. And that it's important here to protect the
ability of the President and THE VICE PRESIDENT to get
unvarnished advice from any source we want.

We have given them a lot of information, for example,

about the cost of the operation. They've got information on
the various agencies and departments that participated where
they clearly do have jurisdiction. But in this one area, we
think it's very important to preserve that principle.
Q I understand the principle, the confidentiality
issue. But can you understand the perception problem, that
to many people it may look like the administration has
something to hide?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, but again, what's the charge

\? What is it that we are alleged to have done with
|

000358
 respect to the Energy Task Force? The fact is, there really
aren't any charges. Enron didn't receive any special
i treatment. We talked to all kinds of people. We talked to
energy companies, we talked to consumer groups, we talked to
environmentalists, we've talked to labor leaders, as we put
together our package. It's a very good package.
What happened was that Congressman Waxman decided he
didn't want to have to deal with the substance of what we
recommended, so he attacked it on the basis of process: you
didn't talk to the right people; you should have talked to
this person instead of that person.
When he got the GAO involved when they first looked at
this last August, and we took a very tough position, they,
in effect, backed off. Now what's happened is, with the •
Enron corporate collapse, some of my Democratic friends on
the Hill have decided they'd like to come back and try to
create a political issue when there really isn't one. But
for us to give up on this very important principle for the
sake of political expediency, which, frankly, is the way we
look it -- the collapse of Enron should not justify
compromise on a basic fundamental principle of the
presidency -- we think that would be a mistake. We think
that would be wrong.
-^ Most of all, we're interested here in trying to pass on
| to our successors our offices in better shape than we f
^s? them in. For 35 years that I've been in town, there's been
a constant, steady erosion of the prerogatives and the
powers of the President of the United States. And I don't
want to be a part of that.
Q But can't you understand the perception problem?
You're a former oil man --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I have to deal in reality, not
perception.
Q But this is the reality. You are a former oil
man; the President's a formal oil man; Don Evans, the
Commerce Secretary, a former oil man. So to a lot of
people, it may appear that your friends at the energy
companies may have had undue influence when you were
developing this --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let's talk about undue influence
for a minute. The Sierra Club put out a set of energy
policy recommendations, 12 points. Our energy
recommendations put out by our task force includes 11 of
those. Are we unduly influenced by the Sierra Club? Of
course not. The solution, if you want to evaluate the
^ policy, is go read the study, look at the 105
J
000359
recommendations we made, decide whether they make sense or
don't make sense. Some of them are probably good news for
energy companies, some of them aren't.
Enron, for example, wanted us to put a mandatory
emissions limit on carbon dioxide. We said no. Enron
wanted us to support the Kyoto Treaty. We said no. Not
everybody got everything they wanted. But did we talk to
energy companies? Absolutely. You'd have to be a damn fool
to put together a comprehensive, nationwide energy policy
and not talk to energy companies.
Q I'm going to do this one more time, then we're
going to move on.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's all right.
Q You're a realist, though. You do know that there
is a political cost here. Is the principle worth that
political cost?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I took an oath when I took -- when
I was sworn in to support and defend the Constitution of the
United States. You have an obligation, I believe, in these
offices to defend the office against the unlawful or
unconstitutional or unreasonable encroachment by the other
branches of government.
The way the Constitution is set up specifically
provides for separation of powers. And to create a
precedent where future vice presidents, for example, would
be in a situation where anytime they meet with somebody,
they have to call Henry Waxman and tell them who they met
with, what the subject was that was discussed, giving him
notes of the meetings that were taken -- now, the
Congressman does not have the constitutional right to insist
that the President or THE VICE PRESIDENT provide him with
that information, any more than I can demand of the
Congressman, look, you've got to tell me everybody you
talked to before you cast that vote. That's silly. That's
not the way the government works.
We sit down, we get advice from any source we want.
We, in the end, make decisions, and those decisions get
embodied in legislation we recommended, or in this case, in
a 177-page report which is not secret, we printed thousands
of copies of it, distributed it all over town. Go evaluate
the report.
Enron didn't get any special deals. Nobody got any
special deals. What we did was to give our best judgment.
You can argue with it, you can debate it, you can say you

000360
 like it or don't like it, but you can't attack it by saying,
well, we're suspicious.
Q Have you and the President talked about Enron?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Well, we've talked about
the study, about our task force.
Q What can you tell us about those discussions?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Nothing. I never talk about my
conversations with the President.
Q But have you talked about this issue, the fact
that --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. Of course, we've discussed
the question of the energy report and my role in it as Vice
President. And he feels as strongly as I do the importance
of protecting and preserving the principles that are part
and parcel of the constitutional authority of the President
and THE VICE PRESIDENT of the United States.
I cannot do my job if I can't be -- if I'm not able to
deal with people in confidence. If people can't come to me
and tell me what they really think, if they can't come and
offer advice or argument without knowing that the next day
it's going to be on the front page of The Washington Post,
or I'm going to call some congressman and say, okay, these
people were in, this is what they said, then there's just no
way for this job, this office to function under those
circumstances.
Q Let's talk a little bit about the fallout of the
company's collapse. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said
about Enron's collapse, and I'm quoting, "Companies come and
go. That's the genius of capitalism." Is that the
administration's policy, that it's okay to stand by and
watch?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think what Paul is
referring to there is that in our private sector economy,
one of the great strengths of our system is that companies
get started, they grow, they do very well; those that aren't
efficient or can't compete fall by the wayside. That's the
way it's always been.
The problem we've got here with Enron is that it may
well have been much more than just the normal laws of
competition -- supply and demand. It looks like there were
significant flaws in terms of the way the company was run.
Now, exactly what happened, we don't know. We do know that

3 investors lost billions. We know that employees lost their

000361
 life savings. We know the company is bankrupt. There are
serious questions about how the accounting function worked
and how Arthur Andersen did its job, serious questions about
how Enron was managed. Those questions need to be answered.
What the President has made clear is that we will do
everything we can to get to the bottom of it. If laws were
broken, people will be prosecuted to the full extent of the
law. If laws need to be changed, they will be changed.
We're already working with a task force on 401K plans, for
example. So we are -- we do think there was a fundamental
problem here, not just sort of the normal cycling, if you
will, of the economy. Clearly, something seriously wrong
happened at Enron.
Q Some of the things you're looking at are more
regulations for 401Ks, for pension plans. But how does that
mesh with the general Republican philosophy of freer rein in
the corporate world?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't think -- I would
argue you've misstated the Republican philosophy. We
believe in a free economy. We believe in the competition of
markets and companies. We think that's very important. But
we also still think it has to be regulated so that you can't
have fraud, for example. If somebody violates basic,
*»
fundamental statutes, they ought to be prosecuted to the
full extent of the law.
j
Now, what has happened with respect to Enron is as --
we will move very aggressively -- I think you will find
Republicans are probably stronger defenders of the system
and tougher on the Enron proposition than are Democrats.
What we believe in is the ability of companies to go out and
compete. And if you're going to have.that, then you've got
to have transparency", you've got to have financial reports
that are accurate, people have to be able to look at a
company and its reports and know that those are true, valid
representations of the status of'the company. And it would
appear that with respect to Enron, that wasn't the case.
Q My last Enron question. A lot of people take the
view that what's happened with Enron, the attention it's
getting, that it's about class; that the monied executives
at Enron walked away moderately scathed, while the little
guy, in this case, lost their shirt. You have a lot of
people in this administration, including yourself, who are
from that former category -- rich executives at one time in
your career. So how do you convince the American people
that you care about the little guy, in this case?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I've had a long career,
Campbell, and I didn't start rich. I spent the first six

000362
years of my life at a high school, working with the tools as
a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers, building power line and transmission line all over
the West. I've been a poverty-stricken graduate student.
So I was fortunate late in life to make a lot of money in
the private sector. But that's, in fact, I think the way
the system is supposed to work. If you work hard and you're
fortunate and get some opportunities, which I clearly had,
I'm thankful for that. But I don't think that the fact that
I was successful in business in any way jeopardizes my
ability to judge these kinds of events.
I don't think this is about class at all. I think it's
a total misreading and misrepresentation of the situation.
I think, in fact, what it's about is whether or not some
individuals running a particular company did, in fact,
conduct themselves in a way that was inconsistent with basic
statutes, laws, and regulations. And if they did, they
ought to be punished, and they will be.
But that's not an indictment of the entire system. We
have the world's most formidable economy. We've achieved a
standard of living in this country that most people only
dream of. We do it by providing jobs for millions of
Americans, and opportunities for future generations to grow
and develop and be prosperous. And part of that is in our
private, free enterprise system in which the ability of
people with a dream and maybe no assets at all, to go borrow
a few dollars and start a business, and if they're
successful and they work hard, they can build a tremendous
enterprise and provide jobs for millions of Americans. And
that's exactly the way it ought to be.
Q Let's move on to foreign policy. On the Mideast,
last week The Washington Post reported that the
administration is considering cutting ties with Yasser
Arafat. Did Sunday's bombing push you closer to that
decision?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: First of all, I would go back and
not buy into the basis of your proposition -- don't believe
everything you read in the newspaper. We have been --
Q Are you considering cutting ties with Yasser
Arafat?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We have been very concerned about
Yasser Arafat's conduct and his failure to keep his
commitments, the fact that he's unable or unwilling to deal
with the violence perpetrated out of the West Bank and Gaza
against Israel, the suicide bombing attacks, in particular.

000363
 We also have been very concerned because he clearly was
involved, or people very close to him were clearly involved
in this shipment of 50 tons of weapons from Iran in
conjunction with Hezbollah, slated for Palestine and the
West Bank. He is --
Q Do you believe he was involved in that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: My own personal view is that it
would not have happened without his knowledge, given the
level of involvement of people very close to him and around
him. So the key here is whether or not he is going to
conduct himself in a way that would allow him to be an
effective interlocutor with respect to the peace process.
So far, he hasn't done that. He knows what he has to do.
He knows he has to deal with the violence on the West Bank.
Until he does, it's difficult to see how we make any
progress in the peace process.
Q But do you have another option?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we've always got options.
The United States government has got a major role to play
here. The President's committed to the peace process, has
spoken out on behalf of the Palestinian state. Secretary
Powell made an important speech last December on all of
these subjects. We had General Zinni to the region. We
want to engage and push forward on that basis. But we have
to have somebody on the Palestinian side who's prepared to
be an effective participant in that process. And that means
they've got to control the violence emerging from the West
Bank and say -- so far, Yasser Arafat has not done that.
Q And for the moment, Yasser Arafat is the only
person we have. _
THE VICE PRESIDENT: So far, Yasser Arafat has not done
what he knows he has to do.
Q Much was made over the weekend about a possible
split among the administration's foreign policy team about
the detainees, the status of the detainees in Cuba. Has the
administration met to discuss this?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We frequently - - w e meet almost
daily with respect to the National Security Council and/or
the principals -- that's the NSC without the President being
there. I never discuss what's on the agenda of those
meetings. We're obviously involved generally in addressing
the war on terror and conducting the war on terror, but
those meetings are and need to be classified.

000364
 Q But the foreign policy team, in particular, is
looking at this issue and there's obviously disagreement
over the status of those detainees and how it should be
handled.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I disagree with that. I
think there are important questions the President has to
resolve, important legal issues with respect to the Geneva
Convention and how it may or may not apply in this
particular instance. There's no disagreement on the
detainees. We all agree they're not lawful combatants. We
all agree that they will be treated humanely. All of that's
true. There are important other policy considerations that
are being deliberated in the interagency. But, as I say,
those deliberations are classified.
Q The State of the Union. The President gives his
State of the Union address tomorrow. How have the
priorities changed from one year ago?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, clearly, the events of
September llth have shifted the focus very much. I mean, a
year ago we were focused very much on the tax bill, which we
got done; we were focused on education reform, which we got
done. Now, after September llth, were in the midst of a
war, we're involved in a war on terror. It's gone very well
in Afghanistan, but that's only the beginning. We've got
terror cells in 65 or 70 countries around the world that we
need to wrap up. So that conflict will continue for some
considerable period of time. That colors everything else we
do.
We're also in a position now where we need to do much
more than we ever had before with respect to securing the
homeland -- that is to say, making us.invulnerable to
attack, doing everything we can to head off and disrupt
efforts to kill Americans. And that effort is underway,
too.
Final point, I think, that is different today than what
it was a year ago, of course, is we're in a recession. We
didn't have -- we thought we were in the beginning of a
recession last year. We said as much before the inaugural.
But now we've actually experienced, we've had two, maybe
three quarters of negative real growth. And we think it's
vital to get the economy back on track, to provide jobs for
Americans. And that will be an important part of the
President's focus, as well.
Q A year ago, though, this was a country that was
enjoying -- an administration that was enjoying a massive
surplus. We are now looking at massive deficits --

000365
 THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, we're not. We're looking at -
- we had a massive surplus. We're now looking at small
1 deficits as the result of the recession. The recession has
significantly reduced the amount of revenue that's going to
come in over the course of the next several years, but it's
a slowdown in the economy that caused that. But even with
the very significant increase in defense spending and the
increase for homeland security the President calls for, we
still end up with a smaller deficit than we've had in any
recession in recent memory. It's a relatively modest
deficit given the total size of the economy.
Q Are you okay, though, dealing with deficits?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure. I mean, if you look back at
statements the President and I have both made, we believe •
very deeply in trying to run a surplus, but there are
expectations. The exceptions are war, recession, national
emergency. And we've got all three. And the amazing thing
is that the economy is strong enough even in a recession to
be able to support and sustain the priorities we need, and
still come very close to eliminating the deficit.
Q I'm getting the signal we need to wrap this up.
But let me ask you -- you probably have one of the most
well-documented health histories of anybody in the country.
How do you feel?
J THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good.

Q Any change in the status?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.

Q Are you working out? ... . —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am, every day.

Q Do you think if this President, who has an

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

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I will make a judgment about a

second term based on whether or not he wants me. Obviously,
it will be his call. After the first term he'll have to
decide whether or not he wants me on the ticket for the
second term. But assuming it makes sense and all of the
things being equal, I'd be glad to serve. I've enjoyed it
very much, it's been a great job. I love working for him.
It's a fascinating time to be here. And I would like to
continue to serve as long as he wants me. But it's his
call.
 Q Is this job more or less stressful now than you
thought it would be?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No -- this is my fifth time in
government, my third time in the White House. So, Campbell,
this is not new in that sense. And stress is doing
something you don't like. Stress is having to spend your
days in a job that you just hate. That's not my problem.
This is a great job and I'm delighted to be here.
Q Mr. Vice President, thank you.
END 11:20 A . M . EST

000367

10