Guests: Amy Argetsinger, Roxanne Roberts, Richard Wolffe, Cliff May, Myron Ebell
TUCKER CARLSON, MSNBC HOST “TUCKER”: Welcome to the show. Global warming literally takes center stage tomorrow when more than 100 musical acts take part in what‘s being called Live Earth Concerts.
They will be on all seven continents, including Antarctica. It is yet one more sign that awareness of global warming has gained steam in recent years. President George Bush himself recently acknowledged the threat.
Leading the charge is former Vice President Al Gore. He is the force behind tomorrow‘s big gig. There is talk that Gore might win a Nobel Peace Prize for his work. And yet here is something you might not know. Not everybody agrees that human beings are the main cause of global warming, much less that we can do anything to reverse it. More on that in a minute.
How scared should you be? We will tell you.
And the Clintons and the White House are trading insults over presidential pardons, but why? Is it wise politics for either side to bring that up? Speaking of the White House, it‘s President Bush‘s 61st birthday today. In addition to a golf bag, he received a present from the state of New Mexico. Unfortunately, it‘s the last thing he wanted. Details in a minute.
And, Barack Obama got a huge reception in Iowa this week. Wait until you find out who loves him. Loves him a lot.
But first, the debate over global warming. Joining me now is Myron Ebell the Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Myron, thanks for coming on.
MYRON EBELL, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: So it seems everybody agrees the temperature is rising.
That‘s measurable. Is—should we be worried?
EBELL: I don‘t think so.
CARLSON: Some people are terrified.
EBELL: Well, because there are a lot of scaremongers like Al Gore and sort of, politically activist scientists telling us that we should be scared.
I think the historical evidence is we‘re in a mild warming trend and the impacts are very modest. And some of them are positive and some of them are negative. I don‘t know why we should be losing sleep over global warming.
CARLSON: Al Gore says that 100 years from now there will be no glaciers or there will be far fewer glaciers. They will have melted, dumping all that water into the world‘s oceans and the levels will rise and your condo will be under water.
EBELL: Well, I hate to kick a guy when he‘s down, but I guess I will.
The problem with Al Gore is that he has been looking for ...
CARLSON: He‘s down? Al Gore is like on the way to getting a Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore is more famous than he has ever been.
EBELL: Well, he has got these family problems at the moment which are causing him to have to cut back on his schedule.
Al Gore has been looking for a world crisis his whole life that he can come through and save the world. He wants to be a super hero action figure. And he has been looking for apocalyptic movement his entire life.
And so basically he makes this stuff up. There is no scientific support for most of his claims.
CARLSON: But—OK. But we know it‘s getting warmer. That‘s a relatively easy thing to determine.
EBELL: Yes.
CARLSON: There is a consensus on that. Now, the point is this is going to hurt mankind. That‘s the point that Al Gore makes. So I want you to compare the worst case scenario, under Al Gore‘s description of the near future, to the present-day reality.
The present-day reality is this. A half a billion people get malaria every year. Tens of thousands of kids die from measles every year. Cholera, tuberculosis kills too many people every year.
Is there any scenario, at least according to Al Gore, under which that number of people will die because of global warming?
EBELL: If you believe everything Al Gore says, then I think global warming would be a real crisis. But, for example, he talks about sea level rise. He talks very easily about, well if Greenland melts, the sea levels will rise 20 feet.
CARLSON: Right.
EBELL: The consensus is embodied in the U.N. Reports. The most recent one which, came out this year, they come out every five or six years, said that—predicted that sea levels would rise by 2100, by perhaps 14 inches.
Now there is a big difference between 14 inches which is faster than the rate in the 20th century or 19th century, but not a lot faster. There is a dig big difference between adapting to 14 inches of sea level rise in 100 years and 20 feet.
But he goes around as if there is scientific backing for what he says.
There isn‘t.
CARLSON: Here is something that confuses me. Al Gore has asked the participants in tomorrow‘s concerts to take a seven-point pledge. Some of them make sense. Some are a little more confusing.
Number one is, I demand my country join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries. And by more than half worldwide.
Why 90 percent in developed countries and less than that in other parts of the world?
EBELL: The idea is that we use much more energy per capita. That is to say it is true that China now has higher emissions than the United States, but they also have five times as many people as we do. So their per capita emissions are much lower than ours.
CARLSON: That certainly makes sense because it‘s a—I mean, if you believe that global warming is this imminent disaster, it‘s a global problem, then wouldn‘t you just care about the bottom line emissions, the aggregate emissions of that country? Why wouldn‘t you ask China to do what you‘re asking the U.S. to do?
EBELL: Because we‘re involved in wealth redistribution here. That‘s part of the whole program.
CARLSON: What does that mean?
EBELL: That we should become much less rich than we are. And people in poor countries like China should not take such a large blow proportionately. So we should live more like the Chinese and they should live more like, I don‘t know, people in Indonesia.
CARLSON: What does that have to do with the environment?
EBELL: Nothing. But it does have to do with the political program which is what Al Gore is on about. If you look at those seven points, they are largely about voting for leaders like Al Gore and supporting businesses that Al Gore‘s companies invest in.
CARLSON: But do you agree that if your bottom line concern were reducing emissions that cause the greenhouse effect, if global warming—if that‘s all you cared about. Then you would demand that every country cut emissions, right? And not just the developed ones, i.e., the U.S. and western Europe?
EBELL: Yes, that‘s right.
CARLSON: Has anybody said anything about this?
EBELL: Well, I think—global warming is really a phenomenon of the left, and the left is all about redistributing income. So we have to become an awful lot poorer, and people in China only have to become a little bit poorer to solve this problem. According to the global warming alarmists like Al Gore.
CARLSON: Can you imagine a point in time in the near future when it becomes illegal for a famous and well-paid political figures, actors, athletes, and musicians to fly in private aircraft?
EBELL: No. Because if you look at the way this whole thing is put together, important people should never be inconvenienced. It‘s only people who don‘t have private jets and limos waiting for them.
CARLSON: But let‘s say you were on your way to perform at a global warming concert. And the focus of your life was ending this imminent disaster called global warming. You couldn‘t really take a private jet to that and have a clean conscience, could you?
EBELL: No, but I think if you really believe what the alarmists are saying we must do, then you wouldn‘t be able to take a jet at all. You would have to telecommute to that conference. If Live Earth goes off tomorrow as planned, it really should be the last one of these big global jamborees because they just use too much energy.
CARLSON: Yes. I am concerned about that as an environmentalist.
Myron, thanks a lot for joining us.
EBELL: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: The networks of NBC Universal will be the place to watch the Live Earth Concerts from around the world. The “Today” Show‘s Ann Curry will host a three-hour special on NBC Saturday night from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. eastern. The cable networks of NBC Universal, that includes Bravo and MSNBC, will have coverage throughout the day.
Up next, it‘s a battle between this White House and the last one. Bill and Hillary Clinton going after President Bush‘s decision to commute Scooter Libby‘s prison sentence. But wait, is that the hypocrisy alarm you hear? It may be.
Plus, President Bush gets a spanking from key members of his own party about strategy in Iraq. Who is breaking ranks now? We have got names. You are watching MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: The two families may get along when it comes to disaster relief, but the White House has been anything but friendly to the Clintons after former president Clinton displayed what Tony Snow called the chutzpah to openly slam President Bush‘s actions in the Scooter Libby case.
He may have a point. When Senator Hillary Clinton denounces the Bush White House for cronyism, arrogance, being above the law, she conveniently forgets her husband‘s 456 pardons and commutations, many for those who had committed serious crimes.
Is it a good idea for Hillary to keep reminding voters about the final dark days of the Clinton administration? Or should she dump Bill and his baggage at the next campaign stop?
Here with a definitive answer to those questions, the President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy‘s Cliff May. And “Newsweek‘s” Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe. Welcome to you both.
We posed this question yesterday, but I just can‘t get over it. The Hillary campaign has got to be concerned, Richard, that the candidate‘s husband, as famous and as brilliant politically as he is, also has a self-control problem. And is he going to cause many hassles for her down the road by talking too much about things he is not supposed to talk about, like pardons?
RICHARD WOLFFE, “NEWSWEEK”: Well, I think the pardon thing was a clear mistake for them. They tried to seize the news on the night. I was there on Monday in Iowa at the fairgrounds. They knew what they were doing. A whole bank of cameras and she waded straight into it.
Then spent the rest of the week having to deal with the pardon question. When in fact, what they wanted to say, was there is this big star out there, Bill Clinton.
CARLSON: Right.
WOLFFE: He is pulling in these big crowds. So it was at best a distraction and at worst a total diversion for them. That was a mistake.
But how can she avoid Bill Clinton? She is married to him and he is a big star for the Democrats.
Not as big a draw as they expected. They thought they were going to get 10,000 people. They certainly talked about 10,000 people in Iowa on Monday night. They didn‘t have anything like that. The problem is Barack Obama has been getting big numbers. If it comes to size, Barack Obama actually wins.
CARLSON: It‘s unbelievable, the disconnect between Obama‘s sort of—the reaction on a retail level to Obama and his fundraising and the poll numbers nationally is amazing. Here‘s what—the “L.A. Times” says probably for the first time in recorded history it is an interesting and intelligent editorial this morning. That says this about Mrs. Clinton, “she seeks to surround herself with her husband‘s legacy, yet strains to stand apart from it. Hillary Clinton‘s attempts to have it both ways, to carry the banner of the Clinton years without their burden makes her vulnerable to ridicule.” It‘s a problem.
CLIFF MAY, FND. FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY: I‘m going to—this is going to surprise you, but I really want to be fair on this. If Hillary didn‘t mention the pardons at all, that would be a story. She doesn‘t dare touch them because her husband issued a pardon.
CARLSON: No,, no. I think it‘s no problem for her to talk about the pardons. It‘s when her husband weighs in on it, that‘s the problem.
MAY: Yes, but even when she does, I mean, she is going to be asked but your husband pardoned terrorists to help your election in New York state, Puerto Rican terrorists.
CARLSON: Yes.
MAY: There is all kinds of—she needs to talk about it and get off it as quickly as she can. With her husband, of course, she is trying to have it both ways. Clinton is a very popular man, certainly in the Democratic party. She needs to say or hint it will be two for the price of one. But there are plenty of people in the country who think the last thing they want is to replay the Clinton years.
And so she is sort of—look, she is trying to get all the benefits and have none of the disadvantages. I don‘t blame her for that. Of course she is.
CARLSON: At some point does some she has to sister soldier the guy in the general election, assuming she gets the nomination?
WOLFFE: Yes. That depends on what news emerges. I think at this point, look, there is plenty in Bill Clinton‘s record that works fantastically well for her among Democrats.
But the pardon is not any one of them. In fact, you talk to any number of Clinton aides, people who worked with him in the White House, loyal to him to this day. You will not find one of them who will stand up for those pardons.
CARLSON: That‘s right.
WOLFFE: So the pardons are a particularly bad case for them. When his numbers hit the low point, coming out of his administration, it was because of the pardons. It‘s the worst possible story, even worse than impeachment for them, at least among Democrats.
CARLSON: I agree with that. You make a fairer case—you‘re more revolted when you read the description of the pardons than you are when you read about Monica Lewinsky. I certainly am, anyway.
MAY: Well I think you‘re right on that. It‘s an obvious point to you but people should—the primary is different from the general.
CARLSON: Right.
MAY: In the primary election, she has got a Clinton to Clinton to get those Democrats who support him to support her. In the general election, frankly she would be wise to keep him at arm‘s length.
CARLSON: Is the president going to pardon Scooter Libby?
MAY: I‘m not sure he will.
CARLSON: Why do you say that?
MAY: I don‘t think it—I think it would not be wrong to do that at all, I would be in favor of it myself. But I think he may say look, the guy doesn‘t have to do jail time. That‘s enough.
CARLSON: But what a weird series of signals from the president. You commute the guy‘s sentence. You say I‘m not ruling it in or out, a final pardon.
MAY: It may be that the president wants him to go through the appeal process in the hope the appeal process will say he should have never been convicted in the first place. There was no underlying crime. Why did he lie about it? Why the sentence?
CARLSON: Does anybody think that is likely to happen?
MAY: Likely, no. Possible, absolutely.
CARLSON: Do you think that‘s what it is? That‘s why Bush did that?
WOLFFE: No. I think there are a couple of principles to pardon him. Let me just say, I got it wrong on the pardon, based on my reporting and talking to the people who worked with him. They said there is no way he will pardon him unless he serves his sentence and shows some remorse.
Well at this stage, the sentence has basically already been served. He has paid his check—he has done his fine. And probation is off the table, according to the judge.
Which means all he has to do is issue some statement and he is ready for pardon on Bush‘s own terms. I would say things have changed dramatically.
CARLSON: So you think Bush would consider pardoning him?
WOLFFE: Now, at this stage, yes.
CARLSON: How strange. Why not just do it, I mean, the first time?
MAY: Again, he may want to let the judicial process play out until—and then just make a decision at that point. I may not agree with that, but it often gets indefensible.
WOLFFE: He has made it clear what haste decision is. He does not think this crime was worth any significant punishment. In that case, you may as well have a pardon. He is pleasing nobody.
MAY: Look, President Clinton lied before a grand jury. Right? He didn‘t go to jail for it. Scooter Libby has been convicted of lying before a grand jury. Should he go to jail for it?
WOLFFE: According to Sandy Berger ...
MAY: Yes. Sandy Berger who stole classified documents stuffed him in his pants and walked out. He hasn‘t done any jail time for that. So let‘s just try to think about what is realistic and what the precedents are.
WOLFFE: Sentencing guidelines.
CARLSON: God. I hope when I commit my felony, and it‘s coming, I am shown the same leniency ...
WOLFFE: Hasn‘t happened yet!
CARLSON: ... as Sandy Berger and everybody else.
Big changes coming to John Edwards‘ presidential campaign. No, he is not getting a new hair stylist, but his staff is getting a makeover.
Plus, we‘ve heard the rumors before of celebrities looking to buy vacation homes on the eastern shore of Maryland. This one might actually be true. Michael Jackson could wind up being Dick Cheney‘s neighbor. How weird is that? You are watching MSNBC, the place for weirdness, and pollitics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: President Bush turned 61 years old today. It‘s unlikely he will be looking for a birthday card from Pete Domenici. Domenici, the Senator from New Mexico, is the latest Republican to break ranks with Mr. Bush on the war in Iraq.
The senator says he is not in favor of immediate troop withdrawal but rather another new strategy. Either way, not good news for President Bush.
Joining us now to make sense of it, the President of the Foundation for Defensive Democracy‘s Cliff May and “Newsweek‘s” Senior White House Correspondent Chris Wolffe.
Cliff, here is what Domenici said, quote, “we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress.” This is the same line you hear from a lot of conservatives and some liberals. But it‘s about the Iraqis and their failure to stand up for themselves. And I have to say, it is infuriating.
MAY: It absolutely is, but there is another part to this that someone like Senator Domenici should understand.
And that is, and the White House says we can‘t tell if the so-called surge is working. Actually it looks like it is working in very important ways. In Anbar province which was written off as hopeless a year ago, most of the traditional leaders have now sided with the U.S. against al Qaeda. Al Qaeda‘s most lethal branch right now is in Iraq.
Also, right now in Baghdad, in the sort of suburbs of Baghdad, General Petraus is clearly making progress against al Qaeda. Now, if we‘re not going to fight al Qaeda in Iraq, whatever is happening with the Iraqi government, tell me where we‘re going to fight al Qaeda.
CARLSON: I‘m not—I wouldn‘t contest that. I guess I am still hung up on the idea that the Iraqis are running their own country and have the right to tell us, after the sacrifice of 3,500 Americans. Have the right to tell us what to do. Why don‘t we just stop pretending that they are an autonomous government, install a provisional and get on with it.
MAY: They are autonomous government but they were a dysfunctional government. They are also, so—our government sometimes looks rather dysfunctional as well. They are having a tough time with it.
On the other hand, we have an opportunity in that country to fight our enemy al Qaeda. By the way, also I would say the Iranians we now know are in there killing Americans. If we surrender that battlefield in Iraq to al Qaeda and Iran because we‘re mad at the Iraqi government, we are only cutting off our nose to spite our face.
CARLSON: Yes. But, we‘re—I‘m still mad at the Iraqi government.
MAY: That‘s fine.
CARLSON: You can see where this is moving politically. Pete Domenici. Yes. Everybody can. What‘s going to happen? Where it‘s moving, of course, is mass defections of Republicans. So what is going to happen in September when this report is issued from General Petraeus? What are the Republicans going to do?
WOLFFE: I don‘t think—my sense is, yes, we‘re going to see some defections, but push comes to shove, are they going to vote with Democrats?
CARLSON: Right. Yes. That‘s the question.
WOLFFE: I don‘t feel that in an off year, when there are no elections breathing down their necks, that they are going to do that. As you get closer to 2008, maybe so. But it doesn‘t feel quite right to me. I think people are trying to position themselves, trying to set things up. That will buy the White House a little more time.
But frankly, the time scale we‘re on here in Washington, it‘s so much shorter than the Iraqis will ever be able to accomplish, that you have a complete disconnect there. Those two things cannot be matched up, no matter how committed President Bush is, no matter how much you make the case about surrender and the impacts of withdrawal, these two-time lines are totally different.
That‘s something that folks on the ground have to deal with.
MAY: Also keep in mind this, that people may not know. This is not a spontaneous movement right now. You have moveon.org, you have George Soros, you have about 1,400 organizations in the so-called anti-war movement.
And they are making phone calls, they are writing letters, they are making Senators and Congressmen feel the heat, and they are getting scared as Congressmen do when they get hundreds of phone calls.
WOLFFE: It goes way beyond some vast liberal conspiracy.
MAY: No, no. It is part of it.
WOLFFE: Look at 2006. Look at the elections, the Independents had sided with Democrats on this war. And you‘re seeing it among moderate Republicans, too. This war—the American people have lost their patience with this war.
MAY: Partly because they are not getting the facts through a lot of the media, sadly.
WOLFFE: You are not telling a good story.
MAY: You‘re not telling probably what‘s going on in Anbar province, how that‘s turned around. You are not telling the fact that al Qaeda—a lot of people have been convinced, wrongly that this is a civil war between two sides in which we have no particular play that we favor. Not true.
WOLFFE: The president has described it as such.
MAY: And if that‘s the case, he‘s wrong, too. Look. His communication skills deserve some criticism.
Listen to General Petraeus, look at what he is doing. If we lose this war, we will lose in Afghanistan and a lot of other places as well. Again, there are only a few places we can fight al Qaeda. This is the most lethal and active branch of al Qaeda. We don‘t surrender the battlefield to them. We don‘t end this war, you accept defeat in this war. We shouldn‘t have Washington politicians declaring our defeat while General Petraeus and his troops are saying we‘re making progress.
CARLSON: I think you make a really—I mean, part of what you say, I agree with completely. I think we are fighting al Qaeda and Iraq. I don‘t think there is anyway to contest that. But you know where this is going. The support is evaporating. When Pete Domenici comes out against it. At some point it becomes politically unsustainable and then it becomes academic.
MAY: If Petraeus does as well as he hopes to do, by next summer at this time we can be withdrawing forces. Not all of them, but a lot of them and turning it over to Iraqis. I hope that‘s the case.
CARLSON: I do, too.
Police make the first arrests in the car bomb plots in the U.K. The Iraqi doctor. But is Britain too focused on these two suspects? Are they in denial about the real threat England is facing?
Plus, Barack Obama shows his inner self on the campaign trail in Iowa.
Now a group of transcendental meditators are oohing and aahing over him.
Obama and the Mahareshi vote. You are watching MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MARKET REPORT)
CARLSON: Now for a look at today‘s Obameter. Barack Obama is telling voters he has the unique ability to win support from across the political spectrum. But who knew that Obama would be such a hit with the meditators?
Plus, in the wake of two foiled terrorism plots in the U.K., new questions about whether the British are in denial about the threats by Islamic extremists inside their country.
And what do we make of the big shakeup in John Edwards‘ campaign? Is this a shrewd jump-start or is it the last call for his presidential campaign?
To tell us, we welcome back the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, Cliff May, and “Newsweek‘s” senior White House correspondent Richard Wolffe. Richard, you were just in Iowa with Barack Obama. Maybe you can explain the following scene. Barack Obama goes to essentially the Maharishi (ph) University town, Fairfield, Iowa, home of John Hageland, natural law party candidate, and gives this speech in which he says this. They love him. He says, somehow we have lost the capacity to recognize ourselves in each other. You know, people talk a lot about the federal deficit, but one of the things I always talk about is an empathy deficit. I always talk about—
WOLFFE: You‘re dead inside? You have no empathy of people.
CARLSON: How high is this guy? He talks between bong hits? What does that mean, an empathy deficit?
WOLFFE: The African-American candidate is the exotic guy who has a Maharishi?
CARLSON: He sounds like a pot head. Tell me what you‘re for. I don‘t want to hear about the empathy—what the hell is that? If I want a therapist, I will pay for one.
WOLFFE: Let me explain something to you about what Democrats do.
This is a standard stump speech.
CARLSON: I know.
WOLFFE: There is something about the common good that they argue about.
CARLSON: Don‘t have a problem with that.
WOLFFE: About seeing each other, helping each other. Whether it‘s public education or health care. That‘s the core message of every single one of these characters. They‘re not all on the Kucinich bus.
CARLSON: I wonder why is it Democrats have had problems getting elected president?
WOLFFE: You tell me.
CARLSON: I think you just explained it.
MAY: Tucker, I don‘t think Americans like empathy. Let me say that. But my favorite part of the story is the Obama supporter who had written on his car the time is now. And a Maharishi follower said but the time is always now.
WOLFFE: Very creative reporting. I hand it to the Politic there. But I was there in that crowd. You could not tell that was a Maharishi crowd. Fairfield does exist as a real place beyond people doing Yoga and transcendental meditation.
CARLSON: First of all, it‘s Yoga. Second, I grew up in southern California. My cousin was deeply into T.M. I can spot them a mile away. Very sweet people. They are very, very nice people.
WOLFFE: They wear crocks and things.
CARLSON: They are pot heads. You‘re not going to convince me otherwise. You, Cliff, just came back from Scotland, part of the United Kingdom, where we are hearing reports that the British people are not fully grasping the problem of terrorism in their midst.
MAY: I don‘t know about the British people. I‘ll tell you about the British elites not grasping it. Gordon Brown, the Scottish prime minister, follower of Tony Blair, he didn‘t want any mention not just of Islam, the religion, but Islamism, the political ideology responsible for this. And the media, same thing, in denial. The front pages, doctors implicated in terrorist plot.
The “Times of London” had part of the Hippocratic Oath there, like how
puzzling that doctors who take this oath could do that. I wonder what
would make them do this. Way back in the paper, then there was some
reference we hope that minority communities won‘t in some strange way—we
can‘t imagine why—be implicated in any of this.
No, there is a lot of denial about the fact of the matter, which is that you have an awful political ideology and set of movements that are trying to kill us in Glasgow, in London, in Iraq, in a lot of other places. And I don‘t know why the elites won‘t grapple it. As far as the people on the ground, I‘m not so sure. During the break Richard mentioned a baggage handler at Glasgow Airport, when one of the terrorists emerged from the car, he gave him a kick to a place that hurts well, and did it so hard that he for a tendon in his foot.
That may be the reaction of the guy on the street in Scotland. Though there is a puzzlement over why are they attacking us? London, we understand, but why up here in Glasgow. Well, because you‘re infidels too.
CARLSON: Richard, interesting numbers from this new BBC survey that suggest that maybe the terror problem in the U.K. is also an immigration problem. It says that only six percent of imams in Britain speak English as a first language. Only eight percent were born in the U.K. It seems like all the people implicated in terror plots and terror attacks since 9/11 in the United Kingdom are immigrants.
WOLFFE: It‘s not actually true.
CARLSON: It‘s not true?
WOLFFE: It‘s not. The imam question is an important one. It‘s common throughout Europe and North Africa. A lot of the foreign trained, especially Wahabi trained imams, are seen as a transplant to their local culture, their local Islamic culture and spreading radical jihad, basically. But one of the acute problems for the intelligence services in Britain is that many of the people involved, for instance, in the 7/7 attacks were British born, British citizens.
Their families may have been immigrants two or three generations previously, but they have—that is a particularly difficult problem. So just identifying them as immigrants is not a simple solution. I have got to just pick up something close to that.
The idea that the Brits at the political level are not serious about Islamism, about jihadism is ridiculous. They are in Afghanistan. They are in Iraq. Tony Blair has spoken out forthrightly.
MAY: Tony Blair absolutely, but what about Gordon Brown.
WOLFFE: Gordon Brown has fully signed up to his agenda, and has been very tough. By the way, when you look at how Britain has dealt with this, just yesterday, four people were convicted of terrorism related offenses under post-9/11 laws. I‘m not going to justify everything their labor government does over there. But they have found a way to deal with terrorists within the criminal justice system, not by dumping them offshore and taking them out of the legal framework that‘s established.
So they are dealing with terrorism cases right now.
MAY: In some ways they are. I don‘t want to go too far. There is a
couple lessons we can draw. One is this, the fact that you had so many
doctors implicated in this shows you that this is not about poverty, this
is not about lack of respect, this is not about alienation. This is about
a political ideology that is really, really poisonous. We also know that -
but we do have a problem in Britain with not everybody, but a number not assimilating well, going back to Pakistan, going back to Saudi Arabia.
They want Sharia law in Britain. They want Britain to become a very different kind of country.
CARLSON: Why are you describing it as a political ideology? It seems a religious creed.
MAY: Militant Islamism I say is a political ideology that derives its legitimacy from a religion. That‘s why it‘s hard for us to talk about it and why it‘s hard for Gordon Brown. No one wants to dump on somebody else‘s religion. But the ideology and movements we‘re talking about, whether it be Wahabism or what the Iranian mullahs talk about or al Qaeda or Hamas or Hezbollah, these are all anti-western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Hindu, anti-moderate Muslim ideologies that, again, derive their legitimacy from a claim to we are going to have a movement like the prophet had back in the seventh century.
CARLSON: But they have political aims.
MAY: They have clear political aims. They have clear imperialist aims. It‘s very clear what they intend to do. They intend to destroy western civilization and build a new empire on the ashes. They say that. I don‘t say that.
CARLSON: Can we just—I don‘t—Since we‘re talking about the destruction of western civilization, I want to touch briefly on the Edwards for president campaign, which has had something of a shakeup.
MAY: Great segue.
CARLSON: It is great segue. You know in your heart it is true. I like John Edwards and I feel sorry for him, never more than now.
WOLFFE: He is a man with great hair.
CARLSON: Thank you. In the final days of his campaign, he has brought in really his base. That is kind of fervid haters online. He has brought in two guys from the anti-Wal-Mart effort, wake-up Wal-Mart. Now, let me ask a macro question here. Wal-Mart is one of the biggest employers in the United States. It‘s the biggest store in the world. Why hate Wal-Mart? It almost seems like Wal-Mart is hated because it‘s a symbol of America. I guess I don‘t get that.
WOLFFE: It‘s a pure play for the labor vote, which is just about the only piece of his constituency that he has left. But what the Clintons understood, not just because they were from Arkansas, was that if you‘re going to go for those rural, traditionally Democratic communities, which John Edwards previously was going for, you don‘t just take the labor side of it. They love Wal-Mart because of the cheap prices.
CARLSON: Exactly.
WOLFFE: So there is a problem in going after Wal-Mart. But look, in terms of the labor vote, which like you said is the bedrock of both his financial and organizational side of things, it‘s a no-brainer.
CARLSON: It just seems—no, you‘re absolutely right, I think. But it just seems like he is attempting to run a campaign based solely on the furthest end of the Democratic spectrum.
MAY: To be fair, he figures these people know how to do grassroots campaigns. To be unfair, John Edwards believes there are two Americas, those who shop in Wal-Mart and those who shop at Nieman-Marcus and Bloomingdale‘s.
WOLFFE: I think he gets his hair done there.
MAY: I think he gets his hair done their too. His campaign is not doing very well. I don‘t think anybody thinks any longer he will be the candidate or be president. By the way, he is somebody, along the lines we were talking about before, who says there is no war on terrorism. He is in total denial because the people he is appealing to on the very far left are in denial.
There is no war on terrorism. There is no war on Islamism. There is simply our bad policies that are making people angry, including doctors up in Scotland.
CARLSON: Listen, final point, political one; “Newsweek” has a new poll, 92 percent of those asked—Americans asked by “Newsweek” said they would vote for a black candidate; 86 percent say they would vote for a female candidate. Only 65 percent said they would vote for a Mormon candidate.
WOLFFE: And that‘s if they were the nominee of their own party.
CARLSON: That‘s amazing. Why hasn‘t that number risen?
WOLFFE: And the Latino numbers too, around that same level. It is pretty shocking. Now there was good news in that poll for Hillary Clinton. She is about 20 points ahead of Barack Obama. We phrased the question also, do you think America is ready for an African-American president?
CARLSON: That‘s a clever way to put it.
WOLFFE: Which is giving people some cover. Those numbers are less. About 60 percent say a woman or an African-American president. But those are up 20 points just since 2000. So attitudes are changing. But they are clearly not changing when it comes to a Mormon or a Latino. I think that‘s troubling if you‘re a Mormon or a Latino in this race.
CARLSON: It‘s trouble for Mitt Romney.
MAY: Romney has a lot to do to make people feel comfortable with what he believes in his private life. There‘s no question about it. The other thing I thought was interesting in the polls, people are worried about candidates who don‘t have sufficient experience. It‘s good for Hillary, because she does. Bad for Obama because he doesn‘t. It probably benefits Romney, but he has a lot to do to make people feel comfortable with him.
CARLSON: Cliff May, Richard Wolffe, thank you both very much. Happy weekend.
Is Michael Jackson really looking to buy a house in the D.C. area? Did his Las Vegas landlord tell him to beat it? The gossip pages are filled with the rumors. Only we have the scoop from a Reliable Source.
Plus cops chase a DUI suspect more than 100 miles an hour. No, it didn‘t happen in Los Angeles. What‘s even more shocking is who was driving the vehicle. Our high speed chase correspondent Willie Geist has every lurid detail. That‘s ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Washington, D.C. in the summertime. Hot, humid, brimming with rumor and innuendo. Who better to help us sift through what is true and what should be true than Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts? They are the ladies of the “Washington Post‘s” universally read gossip column, the Reliable Source. Ladies, welcome.
AMY ARGETSINGER, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: We missed you.
ROXANNE ROBERTS, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: Glad to be here.
CARLSON: I missed you, too. I‘m really glad you‘re back. What has happened in your absence?
ARGETSINGER: Ordinarily a week like this, around the holidays, you can count on it to be pretty slow. Desperately slow, in fact. We got very lucky this week, you might say. When we first heard reports out of the eastern shore of Maryland that Michael Jackson was looking for real estate, frankly, I didn‘t believe it. Why would Michael Jackson be on the eastern shore? This nice bucolic, small town on Chesapeake Bay.
ROBERTS: I can‘t imagine him in topsiders, can you?
CARLSON: That‘s so creepy.
ARGETSINGER: It doesn‘t seem like his kind of thing. Turned out to be true, though. He was here. He talked to his publicist earlier this week, who explained that Michael‘s advisors and attorneys are all on the east coast. He came out here for a bunch of conferences. In the meantime, has been looking around for another weekend place. She explains that Michael likes privacy. He wants a place with a lot of land.
ROBERTS: About 300 acres, right?
ARGETSINGER: Neverland has about 3,000 acres. It‘s hard to get another place like that on the west coast. East coast has more properties like that. He was looking supposedly at some very high end real estate. He did not stay very long. This area where he was looking is really just about an hour and a half, two hours from Washington, D.C.
ROBERTS: But Don Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney both have houses there.
ARGETSINGER: In the particular neighborhood where Michael was staying. So, I don‘t know, you make your own joke.
ROBERTS: Imagine that barbecue.
ARGETSINGER: Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Michael Jackson walk into a bait and tackle shop. I don‘t know where to take it from there. I don‘t.
CARLSON: It could go in so many directions.
ARGETSINGER: He has not bought a place, though. In fact, he is continuing to move on up the east coast. Perhaps to the Hamptons, who knows? perhaps to Maine, Nantucket. He is continuing to look for high-end real estate.
ROBERTS: Don‘t go there.
CARLSON: At this point, you‘re starting to wreck my day. What else is going on?
ROBERTS: Let‘s see. Mayor Fenty. Adrian Fenty, who is our new mayor in Washington. Are you a gadget guy?
CARLSON: I am not.
ROBERTS: OK, well he is a gadget guy. He has three blackberries. So when the iPhones came out last week, some city employees spirited away more than one per person.
ARGETSINGER: That was the rumor. People are going nuts about this on the blogs because Washington apparently is filled with uptight geeks who are maybe upset that someone is getting an iPhone before them. So when a city staffer was seen walking off with an arm full of iPhones, people immediately cried foul. It was all over the blogs last weekend.
The city insisted that no, actually there were three employees standing in line to get these three phones and that none of them went to Mayor Fenty, which we didn‘t really believe, because if anyone would have an iPhone, this guy would have an iPhone.
ROBERTS: But he ordered them all to be returned. He didn‘t want to look like there was any possible—
ARGETSINGER: There was a similar fuss in Philadelphia, you may remember, where the mayor of Philadelphia spent all day in line for an iPhone which didn‘t really sit well with constituents.
CARLSON: Can you actually do work on an iPhone? Is it all about Mariah Carey and porn?
ROBERTS: I think you can do everything on an iPhone. That is not the point. The point is people were very gassed at this. And on July Fourth, the mayor was at a parade. Someone was looking too closely at his belt, and went, oh, he‘s got an iPhone.
ARGETSINGER: And called us.
ROBERTS: Yes, called us and said it turned out it was just one of his three blackberries. It was a blackberry Pearl, which looks a lot like an iPhone.
ARGETSINGER: But it‘s not an iPhone. He does not have an iPhone, yet.
ROBERTS: Our city remains pure.
CARLSON: Any city where people wear their phones on their belts, there is something profoundly wrong with it. That‘s just my observation. Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger, it‘s really nice to have you both back.
ROBERTS: Good to be here.
CARLSON: Thanks. President Bush finally found something to celebrate today, his own birthday. The commander in chief turned 61. Does he have anyone to celebrate with? Celebrity birthday correspondent Willie Geist helps the president blow out the candles when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Welcome back to. Joining us now, triumphantly returning from a three hour turn in the host chair this morning on MSNBC, Willie Geist.
WILLIE GEIST, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: A three-hour tour it was Tucker, and you were a great guest. Thank you so much for calling in. It was fun.
CARLSON: Willie, that was an excellent show.
GEIST: Thank you, I appreciate it.
CARLSON: If I were over on the CBS—whatever their morning show is called?
GEIST: Early show, yes.
CARLSON: I would look over and say, you know, Harry is a great guy and everything, Willie Geist is our man.
GEIST: Tucker, I‘m not giving you 10 percent of my new deal. Settle down, settle down. No, it was fun. Tucker, we‘ve got some big news for our very own show right here. Starting on Monday, we are on live at 6:00 p.m., only 6:00 p.m. It turned out there was too much of a good thing. We‘re getting rid of the whole 4:00 thing. 6:00 p.m. live. It‘s going to be fast-paced breaking news. Throwing things at you left and right. 6:00 p.m. live every week night beginning on Monday.
So, new schedule for us, Tucker, get ready.
CARLSON: We are ready. Focusing all our energies on one live hour.
GEIST: It‘s going to be good. Now, I have to apologize in advance for doing another Paris Hilton show. I swear I‘m getting over her. But this one is pretty good. A UCLA student has been getting calls and text messages on her cell phone at all hours of night for someone named Paris. She has now learned that her phone number once belonged to Paris Hilton.
The student dropped her phone in a toilet in February—long story—and had to get a new number with her new phone. By random selection, the new digits were the exact same ones Paris had before she changed her number. The UCLA undergrad says she has talked to rap stars and had long conversations with people who think they are talking to Paris Hilton. She has even been invited to parties and gone to them.
She says she is keeping the number, of course. Now, Tucker, if there was ever the person who could write the definitive memoir about Paris Hilton, here it. She is hearing from rap stars, actors, people, sort of seedy characters from the outside who might be interested in other things. She has got the whole story right in this phone.
CARLSON: Maybe she could answer the most basic question, which is what does Paris Hilton do?
GEIST: Nothing now.
CARLSON: Who is Paris Hilton? We got so caught up in the story, I forgot to ask.
GEIST: She does nothing. She was a good prisoner, but she doesn‘t even have that any more. I don‘t know what she‘s got. I would like to read that girl‘s phone, put it that way.
Well, Tucker is it me or is the girl in this next story headed down the wrong path in life? She‘s an 11-year-old who led police on a high-sped car chase across the Florida/Alabama border the other night. She eventually flipped the Chevy Monte Carlo she had been driving at speeds of over 100 miles an hour.
But wait, it gets worse. It turns out the fact that she was 11 wasn‘t the only thing causing her to driver erratically. No, she was drunk too. Yes, 11 years old, drunk, driving 100 miles an hour. Police swarmed the car with guns drawn until they saw they were dealing with a little girl. She told them she was going to pick up her sister at a concert.
The 11-year-old was arrested and charged with DUI. Tucker, it seems to me in that case, you can just stop the charges at the D., right? Driving, forget 00 you don‘t even need the U and the I. Just leave it at the D. She‘s driving and she‘s 11 years old going 100 miles an hour. I would love to know the back story on this one. She had a couple stingers and went out and hit the road to pick up her sister?
CARLSON: So she was driving drunk at a 100 and she didn‘t hit anything?
GEIST: No, actually pretty good driver.
CARLSON: It is sort of amazing. I‘m not endorsing it. But it is impressive.
GEIST: She did flip the car. But I think she had her seat belt on.
She‘s actually, you know, scrapes and bruises, in and out of the hospital. Kind of remarkable that an 11-year-old who is not only drunk but was leading police on a high-speed chase. Amazing, what are the kids coming to?
Well, the facts of our next story don‘t matter much, really. We admit, it‘s all about the pictures. You may remember these actual mug shots of a former firefighter from Ohio who was arrested for DUI and public indecency after he was caught drunk hanging out around a park in a bikini and a women‘s wig.
The man pleaded guilty yesterday to the DUI and indecency charges—were dropped. At the time of the arrest, the firefighter explained that he was on his way to a bar to sing as a woman for a 10,000 dollar cash prize. Now, why didn‘t you just say so? We would have let you go right on the spot. Tucker, did we need to give you the update from the courtroom in Ohio? Maybe not. Did we want to show you these pictures one more time? Of course we did.
CARLSON: And one more time I‘m going to scoff at that excuse, he was on his way to a singing contest?
GEIST: Yes, I know. He is actually—police have now said he can‘t
go anywhere near that park for two years. I don‘t know what the singing
contest has to do with hanging around the swing set in the park when your -
CARLSON: I have a feeling that is going to be harder than he thinks.
GEIST: More complicated. Finally, Tucker, if you believe the latest polls, about 70 percent of country will not be getting President Bush a birthday gift this year. The president turns 61 years old today. He is spending the day with his family at Camp David. He celebrated last night by going to a Washington Nationals baseball game. Kind of a miserable way to spend your birthday.
The president is in pretty good company with his July 6th birthday. Check out this collection of talent: rap superstar 50 cent, one of your favorites, Tucker, Sylvester Stallone, Burt Ward, the man who dressed up in tights to play Robin in the TV version of “Batman and Robin,” the Dalai Lama, wow, and finally, TV icon Merv Griffin, without whom there would be no “Wheel of Fortune” as we know it.
Good company for the president.
CARLSON: Amazing. Merv Griffin. There is a hero. Willie Geist.
Thanks Willie.
GEIST: Have a good weekend.
CARLSON: I hope you do. We will be back Monday at 6:00 p.m. live.
Tune in then. We‘ll see you. Have a great weekend.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
END
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