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Transcript from Matt Lauer Historic Interview with ex-

President George W. Bush (with VIDEO Link)

To watch VIDEOS of this Interview (including a visit to George W. Bush childhood home),
Please Click HERE

MATT LAUER, co-host: Now our -- to our interview with President George W. Bush , his first
since leaving office. He talked extensively about his presidency as he gets set to release his new
memoir, " Decision Points," tomorrow. And he told me how his decision not to pardon a type -- a
top White House aide almost cost him his friendship with Vice President Dick Cheney . I think,
President Bush , you're going to get a lot of attention for a story you put in the book about the
last portion of your presidency when you had a decision to make concerning Scooter Libby .

President GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes.

LAUER: And he had been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice and sentenced to 30
years in prison. And you had a choice, you could've done nothing.

Pres. BUSH: Right.

LAUER: You could've commuted his sentence or issued a full pardon. You thought long and hard
about it.
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Pres. BUSH: I did. Scooter is a loyal American who worked for Vice President Cheney who got
caught up in a -- in this Valerie Plame case and was indicted and convicted. And I chose to
commute his sentence. I felt he had paid enough of a penalty.

LAUER: Critics immediately said, you know, if you're loyal to Bush , you don't have to go to
prison. So you -- so it didn't come without a price.

Pres. BUSH: That's right .

LAUER: And yet Vice President Cheney wanted more.

Pres. BUSH: He did. He wanted me to pardon him. And this is a decision that was -- it was the
last decision of the presidency, really. And I chose to let the jury verdict stand after some serious
deliberation. And it -- the vice president was angry and...

LAUER: Yeah. When you went to him and you told him, you said he was furious. He said, 'I
can't believe you're going to leave a soldier on the battlefield.'

Pres. BUSH: Yeah, he did.

LAUER: Has your relationship with Dick Cheney ever recovered from failing to give the
pardon?

Pres. BUSH: It has. I'm pleased -- I'm pleased to report it has.

LAUER: You're friends today?

Pres. BUSH: We are friends today and he gave a very gracious speech on the way out of town
there, at Andrews Air Force Base , and yeah, we are friends. I went by to see him, I've seen him
since and talked to him and I'm pleased to report we are. I was a little concerned at one time, but,
no, it was a hard decision to make. But that's what you do when you're president, you make hard
decisions.

LAUER: President Bush also took me to the church where he married his wife , Laura , and he
talked about he called the most important decision of his life, his decision to quit drinking years
ago. In the book, you say, you know, faith is a walk.

Pres. BUSH: Yeah, it is.

LAUER: It's a journey and -- toward greater understanding. You said you can't prove that God
exists , but that shouldn't be the standard of belief because you also can't prove that God doesn't
exist.

Pres. BUSH: Yeah. Exactly.

LAUER: What was it in your life, President Bush , that made you re-examine your own faith and
take a deeper look at it? Please, have a seat.
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Pres. BUSH: Thank you. I didn't like the person I was. I was drinking a lot. My parents did me a
great favor, they planted the seed of faith, but I, you know, I'd go to church so I wouldn't irritate
my mother.

LAUER: President Bush says his faith helped him quit drinking cold turkey just after his 40th
birthday.

Pres. BUSH: Yeah, I'd have a beer and so the book starts out with Laura saying can you tell me a
day in which you haven't had a drink?

LAUER: Right.

Pres. BUSH: And when you drink too much, the answer's, yes, I can. And then I couldn't
remember a day. And you know, I could easily have a beer or two or a martini before dinner,
bourbons, B&Bs , I was a drinker. Now I wasn't a knee walking drunk.

LAUER: You were like a habitual drinker as opposed to an alcoholic.

Pres. BUSH: Exactly. Nevertheless, in either case, alcohol becomes central to your life and I
finally woke up and realized that I did not want to live a life where alcohol was central. And I 'm
convinced, I really am convinced, had I not quit drinking, I wouldn't be sitting here as a former
president because I chronicle a few incidents...

LAUER: Sure.

Pres. BUSH: ...where alcohol made my quick tongue not only quick, but caused me to be stupid.

LAUER: He'll actually share one of those stories during the interview. You can catch the entire
interview with President Bush tonight, it's a one-hour prime-time special, "Decision Points: A
Conversation with George W. Bush ." It airs at 8, 7 Central time right here on NBC . And then he
will be here live in our studio on Wednesday morning. If you'd like to submit a question to
President Bush , you can just go to todayshow.com or you can also give it to us on Twitter or
Facebook .
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President George W. Bush will join Matt Lauer for a live sit-down interview on
TODAY on Wednesday, Nov. 10.
Former President George W. Bush admits in his memoir “Decision Points” that his
2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech and his demeanor in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina were some of the professional and personal mistakes that he
made. In his first one-on-one television interview since leaving the White House,
the former president sat down with Matt Lauer and opened up about his regrets.

Bush looked back on May 1, 2003, when he stood on the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier under a banner saying “Mission Accomplished”
and declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, as a statue of Saddam
Hussein was brought crashing down.

“No question it was a mistake,” Bush told Matt Lauer of the scene that still
reverberates seven years later as the war raged on. “If I had to do it all over again,
which you don't get to do when you're the president, you know, I'd have said,
‘Good going, men and women, great mission’ or something.”

Bush said that he was caught up in an “exhilarating moment,” and writes in the
book that he should have listened the advice he gave others.

“Shortly thereafter I said, ‘Hey — we're not doing any victory dances,’ because I
knew full well the task at hand was gonna be very difficult,” he told Lauer.

He also wrote of many errors involving the Iraq campaign and the failure to find
weapons of mass destruction there, despite numerous intelligence reports pointing
to their existence.

“No one was more shocked or angry than I was when we didn't find the weapons. I
had a sickening feeling every time I thought about it. I still do," Bush writes.

“Was there ever any consideration of apologizing to the American people?” Lauer
asked.

“I mean, apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision,”
Bush replied. “And I don't believe it was the wrong decision. I thought the best
way to handle this was to find out why. And what went wrong. And to remedy it.”
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‘Out of touch’ with Katrina victims

Blamed by many Americans for a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
Bush said his initial mistake was failing to communicate his concern for the storm's
victims, many of whom were black.

He said he should not have done an Air Force One flyover of New Orleans while
much of the city was under water. “Huge mistake,” he told Lauer.

The photo of Bush peering out the window of Air Force One at the storm-ravaged
region made him look, in his words, “detached and uncaring.” Bush told Lauer that
he did not land because he did not want to divert police officers helping hurricane
victims to providing security for him instead.

He also looked back at the words that would come to represent even more of a
disconnect with Katrina victims. “Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job,” he told
then-FEMA director Michael Brown, as images of horrifying destruction were
broadcast and subsequent reports criticized FEMA’s handling of the disaster.

“I tend to boost people's spirits during difficult times. Basically what I was saying
…‘Good job. You're doing what we expect you to do,’” Bush explained to Lauer.

“That’s not what we were seeing,” Lauer interjected.

“Yeah … as president sometimes your intentions get overwhelmed by perception.

And it turns out that — those words became a club for people to say, ‘Wait, this
guy's out of touch.’”

Accusations from critics that he was racist because of the response to Katrina “was
the worst moment of my presidency. I feel the same way today,” he writes.

In his interview with Bush, Lauer recalls singer Kanye West’s unexpected
deviation from the script during an NBC telethon asking for help for Katrina
victims. When it was West’s turn to speak, he said, “George Bush doesn’t care
about black people.”

“That [means] ‘he's a racist,’ ” Bush tells Lauer. “And I didn’t appreciate it then. I
don’t appreciate it now ... I resent it, it’s not true, and it was one of the most
disgusting moments in my presidency.”
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“You’re not saying that the worst moment in your presidency was watching the
misery in Louisiana,” Lauer says. “You’re saying it was when someone insulted
you because of that.”

“No — that — and I also make it clear that the misery in Louisiana affected me
deeply as well,” Bush replies. “There’s a lot of tough moments in the book. And it
was a disgusting moment, pure and simple.”

Abu Ghraib and Rumsfeld

Bush recalled his immediate reaction to seeing photos in 2004 that showed
American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison mistreating and humiliating inmates.

“[I was] sick to my stomach,” Bush said. “Not only have they mistreated prisoners,
they had disgraced the U.S. military and stained our good name.” Bush explained
that he felt “blindsided” because he “wasn’t aware of the graphic nature of the
pictures until later on.”

When Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld twice offered his resignation, Bush
said he considered it.

“I seriously considered accepting his advice,” he writes in the book. “I knew it

would send a powerful signal to replace the leader of the Pentagon after such a
grave mistake. But a big factor held me back — there was no obvious replacement
for Don.”

When Lauer questioned the logic, Bush explained, “We're in the middle of war and
if I couldn't have found somebody quickly to replace Secretary Rumsfeld, you'd
have been on TV saying, ‘There's a vacuum at the Pentagon.It's sending terrible
signals to our troops.’ “

Bush told Lauer that he still thinks he made the right decision, keeping Rumsfeld
on for two more years.

‘Bush’s brain’
Lauer asked the former president point blank for his thoughts on rumors that senior
adviser Karl Rove was “Bush’s brain” and that Vice President Dick Cheney really
ran the White House. “Did it sting?” Lauer asked.

“No, no it didn't sting at all because the so-called ‘Bush’s brain’ and Dick Cheney
knew full well that one wasn't my brain and the other one wasn't running the White
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House,” Bush said, laughing. “Look, when you're the president, there's all kinds of
things said about us. I mean, it's just the nature of the job.”