This is Meet the Press with Tim Russert.
Welcome again to Meet the Press, our issue this Sunday morning.
Tonight, the first presidential debate.
You're looking at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, Connecticut.
At those two podiums will stand the incumbent President Bill Clinton and the challenger,
Senator Bob Dole.
What can we expect tonight from Bob Dole?
That question and more for our guest.
In his first Sunday morning interview since being nominated the Republican candidate for
Vice President, and might I add, the former quarterback for the Buffalo Vills.
With us today, Jack Kemp.
Thank you, Tim.
Thank you.
Welcome back to Meet the Press.
And the San Diego Chargers as well.
Well, we don't talk about it.
Fri-coastal.
Well, you are running hard, aren't you?
How important tonight for Bob Dole?
Very important.
Clearly important, both to the President and to Bob Dole.
Bob gets the first chance, first opportunity to speak without any filter into that camera
and tell the American family, our national family, without any filter, without any sunscreen,
what he believes our future could be like in a Dole-Kemp presidency and vice presidency.
And clearly, he has a chance that he will take, in my opinion, to share with the American
people the vision that he has for America, an economic renewal, a cultural renewal, and
a restoration of strong U.S. leadership around the world.
How much of a risk is there when he tries to distinguish himself from President Clinton
that he appear mean or overly aggressive?
Bob Dole is not a mean man.
He has a chance to show that he is a decent, honorable, in my opinion, he has a chance
to show the American people the type of man, the type of leader, the type of optimism that
he has about the future of this country.
This is the most exciting time in the history of the world, and we are not doing well enough.
We could be doing a lot better.
The President keeps suggesting that we have reached our potential.
We're operating at full capacity.
Bob Dole and Jack Kemp believe we can do a lot better, and that's his opportunity to
share that vision with the American people, as I said before, without any interlocutors
in the press trying to interpret his remarks.
Even Republicans will acknowledge that the campaign is in tough shape right now, decidedly
behind Clinton Gore.
Even Newt Gingrich said the other day, in effect, that if you're in a close congressional
race, run your own race and even stay away from the ticket.
That's probably happened in every presidential race in the history of the country.
Every candidate would tell people, look, you do what you have to do to get elected.
So Bob Dole understands that.
He's been in public life for 35 years.
And clearly, that may be what some would do, but I believe that it may be, to use a football
metaphor, about the middle of the third quarter, we're down by a touchdown, and you don't stand
around on the football field as the quarterback that Bob Dole is and look at the scoreboard.
You play the game to win.
That's what we're doing.
And with all due respect to the President, he's running out the clock in the third quarter.
They're sitting on the status quo.
He is defending the status quo.
And Bob Dole and Jack Kemp mean dramatic change of welfare, education, litigation, regulation,
and particularly one of my favorite topics, total reform of the U.S. tax code to repeal
the 83-year-old system that's seven and a half million words long and is totally confusing,
contradictory, and breeding corruption in America.
Over the last few weeks, we've heard Bob Dole seize on a word with a capital L, liberal,
liberal, liberal.
His campaign manager said, we found our message.
Is it enough tonight from Bob Dole simply for him to pin the liberal label on Bill Clinton?
No, not at all.
It is clearly the philosophy of the Clinton administration to take care of people.
In fact, there's a new ad out for the Democratic Party and President Clinton, which says that
his job is to take care of the American people.
And that is, I believe, reflective of his belief that government knows best, that he
wants to empower bureaucrats, whereas Bob Dole and Jack Kemp trust the American people,
the American family.
And that is a stark difference.
So Bill Clinton clearly comes out of that mold.
The government knows best.
We're going to manipulate and socially engineer everything from the tax code to the bureaucracy
to take care of people, whereas Bob Dole knows where the American people want to go and has
a plan to take them there.
And that's what, in my opinion, is what leadership is all about.
We've heard from Bill Clinton, in contrast to Bob Dole saying liberal, liberal, liberal,
Clinton saying Gingrich, Gingrich, Gingrich.
It's the Dole-Gingrich ticket.
How much of an albatross has Newt Gingrich been on your run?
Well, I believe that the Congress, the Republican Congress, did a terrific job.
In fact, I watched the President, at least in his conversation with Tom Daschle and Trent
Lott, telling both Daschle and Lott what a terrific job this Congress did in its closing
session.
It's going to be pretty tough for them to hang on the Congress all of a sudden being
bad guys when the President said yesterday in the conversation with Lott and Daschle
that it had done a good job.
A. B. This is Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott and the Republican Congress, in my opinion,
will be a lot better Congress under Bob Dole as President and Jack Kemp as Vice President
than even they have been.
And then thirdly, with Bob Dole as President, I can look you in the eye and look the American
people in the eye and say there will never be a budget train wreck, there will never
be a shutdown of government, we will not put the cart before the horse.
It is right to downsize government, but the very highest priority of a Dole-Kemp administration
will be to expand the size of this economy, create more jobs, allow those who have nothing
to begin to own and get jobs and a better education and become the entrepreneurs or
the owners or the, to recapture the American dream for everybody.
Bob Dole wants to take this country forward, Tim, but we must not leave anybody behind.
And today in America, there are too many people being left out of this recovery.
In hindsight, however, would it have been better for Newt Gingrich to be more temperate
in his language, less strident?
I think the, whatever problem that the Congress had in the beginning, it was putting the cart
before the horse.
It would be no secret that Kemp and Bob Dole would have cut the capital gains rate first,
would have cut income tax rate, would have provided the family relief tax credit first
and then downsize government.
Clearly, the best way to downsize government is not only to remove some of that bureaucracy,
but to expand the economy and make government smaller relative to the size of the private
sector.
This economy is not growing fast enough.
It is growing at about 2.3, 2.4% per annum.
That is not acceptable morally, socially and economically or fiscally.
We can't solve the problems of our entitlements.
We can't solve the problems of inner city unemployment.
We cannot help get the tide rising that will lift boats if we don't expand this economy.
And Bob Dole and Jack Kemp will put expanding the economy, reforming the code, changing
regulations to bring common sense to our regulatory processes in America and end the litigation,
reign of terror in America against small businessmen and women, farmers, ranchers and anybody that
wants to go into business in this nation.
We can do a lot better.
They're accepting the status quo and we believe the potential of the American economy and
the American people is vastly superior to anything that Bill Clinton and Al Gore believe
right today.
I want to talk about some issues that may come up tonight, including the tax cut.
First on the so-called character issue, House Republicans have requested that President
Clinton make a promise that he will not pardon anyone involved with Whitewater, Filegate,
Travelgate.
Should President Clinton do that?
I'm going to leave that up to Bob Dole to talk about.
I'm not talking about it.
Clearly, the American people do not want a blanket indictment of the administration.
They don't want blanket pardons.
So clearly Bob Dole will make up his mind as to how to treat that subject as far as
I'm concerned.
The most important part of this issue is who can you trust?
And I believe the American people understand that when Bob Dole looks them in the eye after
35 years of public service and military service to this country, when he pledges to them that
something will happen good in their lives, that it will happen.
Bob Dole can be trusted, and he's that type of a leader.
He always has been.
And his effort should be to share that vision with the American people and not just try
to tear down or not tear down the President's record.
We have such a great vision and agenda for the future of this country.
In my opinion, that is what has to be emphasized tonight.
But the Republicans have been saying that President Clinton is dangling a pardon out
there.
Well, they may be, and they should do that.
But clearly Bob Dole has to go far beyond that issue and take his vision to the American
people and look straight in that camera and pledge to them what would happen in a Dole
camp administration.
Let's talk about the 15 percent tax cut, the centerpiece of your campaign.
The American people, and you've seen the same data I have, just don't plain believe that
you can cut taxes $550 billion and still balance the budget.
And here's what they say, John, as you know.
We have a $5 trillion debt.
We have a $150 billion deficit.
And you want to come along and cut taxes $550 billion when Newt Gingrich couldn't cut
taxes even half that much.
First of all, it's $550 billion over six years.
Second of all, a $550 billion tax cut has to be judged against the fact that in the
next six years the total output of goods and services in the United States of America's
economy will be well over $50 trillion.
So a $550 billion tax cut, Tim, is one and a half percent of the total output of the
United States economy and goods and services.
It's very modest.
It can be done.
Bob and Jack Kemp can do it, and we can do it while balancing the budget because it's
designed to expand the size of our economy.
It'll provide enormous relief to families.
It'll lower the cost of labor and capital.
We're going to cut the capital gain tax unapologetically and unashamedly by 50 percent, and that alone
will bring far more revenue into the government than will be, in my opinion, just by holding
down the growth of entitlements or spending.
We don't need to cut Medicare.
We can slow down the growth of Medicare.
We can slow down the growth of entitlement programs, but we're going to expand the economy.
But one other thing that I wouldn't be Jack Kemp if I didn't say that it is bean counting.
It is certified public accounting with green eyeshades to suggest that this country cannot
have a much, much bigger economy.
If we set as a goal for America to double the size of the American economy in the next,
say, 10 to 12 years, you would have an extra $5 trillion of income in the pockets and businesses
of the American private sector.
Plus, you'd have an extra trillion dollars of revenue with which to bring reforms of
entitlements and to help save the safety net under which American people should not be
allowed to fall.
And the third point that has to be made, excuse me, I think these numbers are going to be
obsolete because under Bob Dole, by the end of this century, the end of this decade, just
three years or four years henceforth, we're going to have a new tax system that will stop
the double, triple, and quadruple taxation of income.
And it'll be pro-growth and pro-family, simpler, flatter, fairer.
And the most exciting part of this is it will break the Gordian knot that's holding this
country back and breeding corruption, cynicism, and contradiction in the U.S. tax code.
The Clinton people, of course, say...
Can't be done.
Well, they'll say several things.
One, they cut the deficit in half.
Growth is much higher than it was during George Bush.
Unemployment's at record low, interest rates at record low.
And then they contrast it to Ronald Reagan.
And you were the architect of his tax cut.
Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1981.
Cut the rates, Tim.
You should be more careful.
Cut tax rates in 1981.
And then, in order to make up for that lost revenue, had to raise taxes.
Ronald Reagan raised taxes five times, and the deficit still doubled because you did
not get the huge supply-side rush that you had promised.
Well, that's your interpretation.
With all due respect, the economy grew in a noninflationary way by one-third in the
eight years of Ronald Reagan.
Number two, the revenues coming into the government by lowering the tax rates by 25 percent, actually,
by 25 percent.
Revenues grew by 40 percent.
Congress went crazy.
We had a Democratic Congress...
No, no, no.
You had a Republican Senate from 1980 to 1986.
And Ronald Reagan never submitted a balanced budget?
Well, then the question has to be asked to you.
Would you have preferred that the top tax rates stay at 70 percent?
Would Bill Clinton and Al Gore be able to defend the old tax code that was at the top
rate of 70 percent?
Capital gains was almost at 49 percent before Bill Steger cut it in half and the Kemp Rock
bill cut it down to 20.
The growth was not inflationary.
And in my opinion, there's no way we could have stuck with that tax code.
We had to lower the rates.
It was the right thing to do, but Congress overspent.
And clearly, with the Republican Congress and Bob Dole as president, we can both cut
the rates on capital and labor and the American family, hold down the growth of spending,
bring budget equilibrium to this country, and then reform the tax code and end the regulatory
reign of terror on the American entrepreneur.
Spending is the problem.
I had Richard Darman, the budget director under Ronald Reagan and George Bush here.
He was wrong with George Bush and he was wrong in his book.
Spending is not the only problem.
Let me quote...
It's the lack of a strong economy.
Let me quote fellow Republicans.
Pete Peterson, secretary of commerce under Richard Nixon, Warren Rudman, one of Bob Dole's
closest friends and advisors.
They have said, and let me show you the following, 80 percent, according to Senator Dole, 80
percent of the budget is off the table.
We will not touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' pensions.
We are only going to focus on 20 percent of the budget to get our cuts.
And this is what the Concord Coalition has found in reviewing the budget.
Let me show you this graphic if I can right there.
The spending on programs like student loans, school lunches, anti-drug programs, the FBI,
immigration, border guards, environment, medical research.
Current spending would be $314 billion, and this is in the year 2002.
Newt Gingrich's plan would have it at $245 billion.
Dole Kemp would have to reduce that to $186 billion, 40 percent, in order to pay for your
tax cut.
I knew you'd do this and you...
But these are Republicans, Mr. Kemp.
Wait, wait, wait.
This is not me.
This is the Concord Coalition.
They were wrong.
They are wrong.
They are nice people.
They love the country.
They're Republicans.
They're Republicans.
And there are Democrats who probably think even worse.
Nonetheless, they are wrong.
Let me tell you.
Let me show you my little chart.
Please.
This is the growth of federal government spending in the next six years under President Clinton.
A 20 percent increase in the growth of public spending.
And this would be the growth rate, if we're going to listen to bean counters, the growth
of the expenditures could go up 14 percent if nothing happened.
But here's the problem with the Concord Coalition, and here's the problem with Dick Garman, and
here's the problem with David Stockman.
All Republicans.
Peters.
Yeah, of course this is a friendly debate.
Okay.
You may not think so, but I think it's friendly.
They are using green eyeshades to suggest that a tax rate cut of 50 percent on capital
gains and tax relief on estates and less regulation, less litigation and reform of welfare education
in America will not change the behavior of the economy.
And Bob Dole and Jack Kent believe we can do a lot better.
We believe we can double the rate of growth of the U.S. economy.
And in the next 12 to 13 years, albeit that may be after Bob Dole leaves the White House,
we could double the size of the U.S. economy.
That means five trillion, if you're going to count beans now, you've got to look at
the fact the American people would have five trillion dollars of extra income with which
to work, save, invest, buy a home, buy a car or start a new business, and the government
would have another trillion dollars of revenue with which to save Medicare, save Social Security,
and save the social safety net under which people should not be allowed to fall.
Here's the difference between Dole and Clinton, in my opinion.
New Ed has President Clinton saying that my job is to take care of the American people.
And Bob Dole believes that his job is to find out where the American people want to go and
help lead them there.
We don't need the President of the United States to take care of us.
We need him to create the climate in which we can work out our own happiness according
to the dictates of our own Judeo-Christian values and allow us to do business, to start
new businesses, to get jobs, get a good education, and get the streets safe, get our schools
drug-free to protect this country and to provide the type of leadership in the world that we
will once again restore the credibility of U.S. leadership, which is sadly lacking at
this moment.
That's what we need from our people.
Bob Dole is doing it.
I've only been using Republicans.
This next one is not a Green-Eyed-Shay Republican.
He's a very pragmatic politician, a Republican, a chairman of the Dole campaign, Alphonse
DeMoto.
And he was asked, he was asked, can you in fact balance the budget by cutting taxes and
simply focusing on domestic spending and not going after entitlements?
And this is what he said.
Let me show you that graphic right here.
I would never say it if I were Dole until after the election.
No way.
I mean, I'm not running this year, so I can say it and tell the truth.
Opening up a politically touchy subject, DeMoto said Monday that wealthy senior citizens should
be paying for that Medicare coverage and that automatic cost of living increases for retirees
should be reexamined.
He went on.
Eventually, you're going to have to go to that.
There's no doubt about it.
You can't just be cutting discretionary domestic spending and think you're going to do the
job.
Senator DeMoto is laying it on the table saying if you're serious about balancing the budget,
you're going to have to look at Medicare, Social Security, veterans' benefits.
Well, Al DeMoto's not running for president, Bob Dole is.
Al DeMoto has a very pessimistic view, in my opinion, about the future.
Bob Dole is an optimist, as am I.
When John F. Kennedy said, we're going to put a man on the moon and we're going to do
it, he didn't say we're going to try.
He said we're going to do it.
When Ronald Reagan said, he didn't say we're going to try to cut tax rates.
We are going to grow the economy, cut tax rates, and reduce the regulatory burden on
the American people.
The economy grew by one-third and revenues grew by 40 percent.
We didn't reach budget equilibrium, but we could have had we restrained the growth of
spending.
Bob Dole is a man who is pledging to the American people tonight that we can both balance our
budget, we can be fiscally responsible, hold down the growth of spending, and grow this
economy at double the rate, or at least at three and a half to four percent.
That will, in any statistical analysis, other than a computer that does not take into account
the risk taker, if you can draw people out of government bonds and tax-free municipals
into starting businesses, expanding businesses, hiring more people, creating more jobs, and
creating a greater entrepreneurial economy, we believe the behavior of this economy can
be changed.
But last point, it is Bill Clinton who told Money Magazine that he would have to reduce
the cost of living allowance for senior citizens on Social Security.
It is the President who tried to balance the budget and bring down the deficit by raising
taxes on Social Security.
It is the President who cut defense, raised taxes, then apologized for it, and told us
we can't have a tax cut unless it's targeted to kids under 13 or kids going to college
at 19.
It is social engineering that will end under Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, and we can double
the size of the U.S. economy if we do it right in the next 12 years.
That means a bigger and more opportunistic America while saving the safety net under
which people should not be allowed to fall.
Congressman Dick Armey, Republican leader in the House, let me show you what he said
about spending.
This is very important.
In little over a decade...
Debating Armey and DeMato, I want to debate...
Well here we go.
In a little over a decade, spending on just five items will consume all the revenue of
the federal government.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, federal retirement, and interests on the national
debt.
If something's not done.
That's precisely the point.
Senator Dole has taken those items off the table.
How can you say you're going to cut taxes and not touch those items?
Bob Dole saved Social Security, along with Alan Greenspan and Pat Moynihan, your old
boss.
1983.
And he has called for a commission on Medicare.
You can't ask a leader of a country to get under the hood and be the mechanic.
There are men and women who can design Medicare and Social Security in such a way as to hold
down the growth of the entitlement while we expand the size of this economy.
That's the single most important thing this country has to do.
Now we're at the nub.
You will acknowledge then, in order to balance the budget and cut taxes to the extent you
want, we are going to have to redesign Social Security and Medicare, which may mean a change
in the delivery of services or increase in premiums or raise in retirement.
Some fundamental changes will have to be made.
You have to restrain the growth of spending on entitlements.
Even Mrs. Clinton and Bill Clinton recognize in their budget that they want to hold down
the growth of Medicare spending.
Now listen to this.
We're getting a...
Oh, I like this.
We should hold this in war memorial stadium where you originally wanted to hold this.
I used to cheer for you back then.
You were yelling for LaMonica.
Your backup quarterback.
Go ahead.
Luke cheers for me.
He doesn't, dude.
He's daddy.
Teasing aside, these numbers are going to be obsolete within two or three years.
They're going to be obsolete.
This is bean counting.
This is unworthy of an American debate over the future of this country.
Social Security and Medicare are vital to people.
They are vital.
They're going to be protected under Bob Dole.
They want to know what Dole-Kemp are going to have to do with them to quote restructure
them.
$23 billion a year is being lost in Medicare as we speak.
The reform of healthcare in the private sector has lowered the rate of inflation from probably
seven down to lower than the rate of the consumer price index, which is about 2.5% growth.
So clearly we need reform.
We need more choice.
We need medical savings accounts.
We have to look at everything.
But that should be done by men and women who can help provide that type of reform.
But the most important reform is to get this economy growing at such a rate so that we
will have the jobs, the revenues, and the greater wealth in our country that will come
from designing a new tax code that would help double the size of the very stock.
So in the first year of a Dole-Kemp administration, there would be a bipartisan commission to
for Medicare.
For Medicare and Social Security, looking at restructuring.
Social Security's trust fund depends totally on the amount of people working at low rates
of inflation.
They answer to Social Security.
But Medicare, absolutely.
Medicare would have a commission.
Does anybody think, anybody in their right mind think, anybody has watched Bob Dole over
the 35 years of his public service and the young 19-year-old soldier who crawled out
of a safe foxhole on Reva's Ridge in 1945 to help save a wounded radio man, a comrade
in arms who was lying on the battlefield dying.
He crawled out, got shot up for it.
Does anybody think that he would move this country forward and leave anybody behind?
He has in his heart, soul, and mind the desire to help make this country better, stronger,
restore leadership, help renew our culture, help make the economy expand, and we will
do it in such a way as not leave any single man, woman, or child behind.
That is a pledge from Jack Kemp, and I believe in my heart it is Bob Dole's pledge to seniors,
to the cities of America.
There is no urban agenda by this president to do anything other than to perpetuate the
conditions of welfare, dependency, and poverty in our nation's inner cities.
And that is something that is morally unacceptable to Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, and that will change
in a Dole presidency.
And we have to take a quick break.
We'll be right back with more with Jack Kemp, Republican candidate for Vice President.
Meet the Press is sponsored by ADM, Supermarket to the World, and GE.
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We're back on Meet the Press.
Our guest is Republican candidate for Vice President, Mr. Jack Kemp.
When you were chosen to be Vice President, you talked about the politics of inclusion,
reaching out to minorities all across the country.
The polls still show Clinton gore 90, Dole Kemp 10 amongst black Americans.
Well, we have to overcome a lot of inertia in the party.
All too often in the past, the Republican Party wrote off the African American vote
and the vote of minorities all over the country.
And it's no secret that Bob and I think that was a big mistake.
We're not doing it.
And I believe that whether it's 90, 10 right now, there's a lot of hearts and minds that
are very open to the Dole Kemp message in the inner cities of America and among men
and women of color throughout a country.
And I'll repeat what Kwaizi Mfume said when he was sworn in as the leader of the NAACP.
He said not only has the Republican Party all too often written off the black vote,
but the Democratic Party takes it for granted.
And I'll tell you what, Tim, we'll get a lot more than 10 percent of the vote.
A lot of black Americans, however, were very concerned when you switch positions on California
Proposition 209 to eliminate all affirmative action.
And let me just ask you a simple question.
Last year in an interview with David Broder of the Washington Post, you said the following,
I think race is a legitimate factor to take into consideration.
It is.
So if someone-
I have not changed my position.
Let me just ask you a simple-
Well, you put a premise in your question that has to be answered.
I have not changed my position.
I have always supported government action, government efforts, affirmative action, as
it were, to help people remove the cause of discrimination.
Race is a legitimate issue to take into consideration for entrance to college, just as my football
career was, geography, whether or not you're the son or daughter of an alum, or where you
live in the country.
It is one of many.
It's not the only one.
I have always opposed and always will any affirmative action program that leads to a
quota.
And I think most men and women of goodwill do on both sides of this debate.
The president has said, mend it, but he has no plan to mend it.
We are suggesting replace affirmative action based upon the color of someone's skin with
affirmative action by a government that will open up access to equality of opportunity,
not equality of outcome, but equality of opportunity in our democracy to get access to education,
access to a job, access to property, access to the capital and credit to launch a new
civil rights agenda.
And Bob Dole announced that new civil rights agenda in front of 1,000 black journalists
in the South.
And it's the first message that a Republican president has brought to this country in a
long time to suggest that the next chapter of the civil rights revolution is ownership,
job, better schools, safe streets, and access to the capital and credit not just to get
a paycheck, but to issue the paycheck, not just to be an employee, but someday be an
employer and not just to stay in a hotel under public accommodations, but have access to
the capital to own hotels and own those businesses.
And that's what Bob Dole and Jack Kemp are pledging to every inner city person in this
country and every man and woman of color.
Let me reduce it to the very basics.
That is the very basics.
That is not superficial.
The kind of issues that people have to confront every day.
Absolutely.
There are two people applying for a seat in college or applying for a job in the fire
department.
One white, one black, both equally qualified, same test scores, and the black is chosen
because there aren't many blacks in the fire department or in the class.
Okay to use race?
If there's been a pattern historically and empirically and objectively provable that
there has been in this pattern a discrimination against men and women of color race should
be taken into, that is the law.
It should not lead to a quota.
That's all Dole and Kemp are saying.
But more important than that is to provide the type of equality of opportunity in this
country for education, jobs, ownership, entrepreneurship, housing, and etc. that would make this country
once again come together in terms of the type of reconciliation between our races and ethnic
backgrounds that is so important to America which is supposed to be a city set on a hill
and getting along in our democracy not dividing people by color.
And no one wants to see this country divided.
So it's alright for an admissions committee to say he's a good athlete?
If there's a pattern of discrimination.
His father's an alumnus or he or she happens to be black.
It can be one of many in my opinion.
But it can be a factor.
I said in answer to the previous question that it can be a factor, not the only factor.
We do not want the decision based for a job or education predicated upon color alone.
It has to be part, it ought to be based on need.
Affirmative action based on need is fully consistent with what Bob Dole and Jack Kemp
are suggesting must be a new civil rights agenda for America.
Now many Hispanic voters have expressed grave concern over Senator Dole's position which
said that if you are the child of an illegal immigrant in school and there are 350,000
kids like that in California alone, they should be denied a public education.
Now Bob Dole incidentally has done two very important, three very important things on
this issue.
Number one, he has suggested and he will fight for and make sure as our president that no
child, no child would be removed from the school based upon being a suspected illegal
immigrant.
All children in school would be grandfathered to July 1, 1997 and from then on to go to
school, on entrance to the school, you would be required to provide a birth certificate
as you do when you get a passport or a license to drive a motor vehicle.
That is legitimate.
He has also suggested he does not support a constitutional amendment to prevent a child
born in this country from being an American citizen upon the birth.
And thirdly, just as importantly, more importantly, since Florida with a Democratic governor and
California with a Republican governor are suing the Clinton administration for non-support,
for not helping them deal with the cost of social welfare, health care, education, Bob
Dole has suggested the federal government, if it can't control the borders, has a legal,
moral and fiduciary obligation to compensate the state of Florida, California, Texas or
Arizona for the cost of not controlling the borders.
We should control our borders.
I'll close with this thought from Father Hesburgh, of whom you are a great fan and
admirer.
Father Hesburgh said something that Bob Dole and I have quoted not only at the Republican
convention where it got a standing ovation but throughout this country, that we must
close the back door of illegal immigration so we can keep open the front door, the golden
door of lawful immigration.
We're going to celebrate the immigrant entrepreneurial experience in the United States of America
under Bob Dole and Jack Kemp, and we're not going to scapegoat people.
We're going to help other countries do well so they can have the jobs that would allow
people to stay home and not have to go to California or Texas or Florida in order to
get a job or an opportunity.
And the other group that Kemp was going to reach out to in this Politics of Inclusion
front page in the New York Times today, the gender gap continues, particularly among soccer
moms, suburban women, many of whom are Republican.
And they list family and medical leave, which they support, an opportunity to leave their
jobs without pay to take care of a sick parent or sick child is one of the reasons.
But they also talk about abortion, the ability in their own lives to make a choice as to
whether or not to have an abortion.
Their party platform says a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion.
Would that be a top priority of the Dole-Kemp administration?
The country, in my opinion, is not ready to change the law until we change the culture.
There are four million births in America and one and a half million abortions, including
thousands and thousands of partial birth abortions, which your old boss, Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan, suggested is too close to infanticide to support in America.
And that's happening every day as we speak.
But Governor, Governor, Governor Christine Todd Whitman, who you campaigned with Friday,
is very much in favor of it.
Of course.
There can be a difference of opinion.
There's a broad difference of opinion in our party and in our country.
But no man or woman, in my opinion, can support the idea of just taking life, human life,
innocent human life, without recognizing what a slippery slope it is to euthanasia, infanticide,
and disrespect of human life.
Something is not done to help protect that most precious resource for this country and
our future.
I would say one other thing.
Clearly Bob Dole and Jack Kemp want to use persuasion.
We have to.
We cannot pass.
A constitutional amendment would not pass.
This wouldn't pass.
So clearly we want to help change the culture.
We want to make abortions rarer, and they are not rare, under Bill Clinton.
In fact, he vetoed a ban by the Republican Congress on the partial birth abortion, which
is too gruesome to explain to the American people on this show.
But as they begin to learn what partial birth abortion does to the life of a child, just
seconds before they leave the womb, I believe that that is the most extreme position in
America today, to take that human life and not give it up for adoption.
There are millions of men and women around this country who want to adopt, and they're
being denied the opportunity.
And I say that as the grandparent of three adopted grandchildren.
But Dole Kemp would not push or make a priority.
It wouldn't pass.
It wouldn't pass.
We must use persuasion.
We must change the culture.
We must make it rarer and remind people that there should be protection for innocent human
life.
I understand that women and men disagree, but we have to recognize that if we as a country
are to be the city set on a hill, this country cannot allow one-third of all births in America
to just capriciously be aborted.
There are instances in which it should not be illegal, but clearly we should protect
innocent human life.
We should protect the elderly against euthanasia.
We should protect people against that slippery slope into which this country would fall off
the example to the rest of the world.
Your ultimate goal when you persuade us after the country is to make abortion illegal.
It is a standard.
It is to recognize that there should be constitutional protection for human life.
What would happen to a woman who had an abortion if in fact it was illegal?
At the moment that is just a hypothetical question.
There is no reason, there is no way it could pass right now.
So I would be happy to discuss how we can make it rarer, how we can encourage adoption.
As Cardinal O'Connor said, there must be some choice for a young woman in trouble other
than just getting federally funded abortions and going to an abortion clinic and having
one and a half, more than one and a half million babies being aborted per annum.
Whether they agree with that or disagree, we respect their right with civility and respect.
Choose the redundancy.
To have a debate in this country over our nation's future and our children are part
of our future, must be if we are to be the great democratic system for the rest of the
world.
Small D.
Very small D.
We are more democratic than the Democratic Party.
We have to take a quick break.
We are talking to Jack Kemp, Republican candidate for Vice President.
We will be right back on Meet the Press right after this.
We are back on Meet the Press talking with a man who wants to be Vice President, Jack
Kemp.
You and Bob Dole have had a very interesting relationship, to put it mildly.
You said that he has never seen a tax cut he did not like.
He said you have never seen a deficit he did not like.
He said you wanted to take a tax deduction for hairspray.
You said his library burned down.
I will never forgive him for that.
Or Jay Leno.
But you came back and said his library burned down and both coloring books were destroyed.
Pretty good line.
Bad line at all.
He never joked about me again.
He said he was coloring the one you even said.
He is a great guy though.
But you also endorsed Steve Forbes for President when Forbes was all but out of the race.
It was part of my secret plan to get on the Dole ticket.
Well tell me about it.
Why do you think Dole picked you?
Were you stunned?
No I was not stunned.
I was surprised, pleasantly surprised.
My wife and I thought about it, talked about it, prayed about it.
I have enormous and profound respect for Bob before I went into it.
My respect has grown daily.
He is a good, decent, honorable patriot and he has a vision of the future that in my opinion
is absolutely essential for making this country roar into the 21st century.
He doesn't accept the status quo as the current president does.
Every family has squabbles.
Every family has debates.
Every family has discussions.
But clearly our debate has been with civility and humor and no one has a better sense of
humor in my opinion than Bob Dole.
He's a great guy Ronnie Reagan.
And I feel very comfortable.
He united the party.
I couldn't have done it.
Steve couldn't have done it.
Lamar couldn't have done it.
Pat couldn't have done it.
Bob Dole put the fiscal responsibility wing of the party together with the rapid economic
growth wing of the party and I think that is really what this country needs.
A restraint on spending in government which cannot come under Bill Clinton with lower
tax rates, less regulation, less litigation and more opportunity for everybody to get
their shot at the American dream.
And Bill Clinton, irrespective of what else he has done, is accepting the fact that we
have reached our capacity, we've reached our potential, this is the best he can do and
you know what Tim, this is the best that Bill Clinton can do.
We believe we can do better.
You were saying you were in your wilderness years.
Wilderness what?
You were telling people, I'm not even sure, are you public anymore?
I'm not sure I'm even going to San Diego.
And suddenly your whole life has turned around.
Surprised by that.
Yes, yeah, not giddy.
But surprised.
Have you turned Bob Dole around on taxes?
Steve Forbes said he raised taxes a trillion dollars and he was called a tax collector
for the welfare state.
Have you made him a supply sign?
This election is about the future.
It is not about the past.
If it is, Bill Clinton loses.
So you've turned Dole around.
Well I have not turned him around.
He is the one that came up with the across the board rate reduction on both labor and
capital, a cut in the capital gain tax, the family relief of $500 tax credit per child,
a relief of a state tax burden, repealing the tax on social security recipients, and
I am fired up about the job he gave me, along with Newt by the way, to study the tax code
of America and come up with a newer, flatter, fairer, simpler, lower tax rate system that
will be pro-growth and pro-family and in my opinion will help lower interest rates.
And lower interest rates and lower tax rates can grow this economy at twice the rate we're
growing today.
Many people suggested this is a trial run for 2002.
Let me show you what Woodrow Wilson predicted back in 1907.
This is about Kemp.
Men of ordinary physique and discretion cannot be present and live.
If the strain cannot somehow be relieved, we shall be obliged always to picking our
presence from wise and prudent athletes, a small class.
He's talking about Bob Dole.
Bob Dole is a football player, a track star, and a basketball player.
Let me ask you a serious question as a former athlete.
We need more athletes in America.
Let me ask you a question about an athlete.
Roberto Alomar spit in an umpire's face.
Should he have been suspended immediately?
Yes.
Not allowed to play in the playoffs or World Series?
Look, you can't play a game, whether it's amateur or professional, and not respect the
umpire, the referee.
Our country cannot survive without having the rule of law and we should teach and inculcate
the respect for the law into our children, into our schools, into our families, and into
this country.
I can't speak for the umpires or the owners or Mr. Alomar.
He's a great athlete.
He's a fantastic baseball player.
In fact, he won the game yesterday.
Keep him out of the playoffs and World Series.
Well, no, I don't know.
I'm not the commissioner of baseball.
I'm just saying it's hurtful to the sport to think that a football player can abuse
an official or a baseball player.
You gotta have rules.
There's gotta be regulations.
There's gotta be respect for authority, and he didn't show that, and spitting on a teacher,
on an official is morally, socially unacceptable in America.
Big event.
But I'm not the commissioner of baseball.
I'm just running for a modest little job as vice president.
Bills and Colts today.
Who do you like?
Bills and Colts?
Some of my friends are in Buffalo and some of my friends are in Indianapolis.
I want to stick with my friends.
There was a day when he was a Buffalo Bills fan.
I still am.
I love him.
Jack, Kim, thanks very much for joining us.
Thank you, Tim.
Coming next, our viewers should know that next week our guest on Meet the Press will
be the Democratic candidate for vice president Al Gore.
Equal time.
Coming up, our Meet the Press Minute with another Republican who ran for vice president,
Richard Nixon, way back in 1952.
Meet the Press is sponsored by Behr Corporation, a research-based company in healthcare, chemicals,
and imaging technologies.
Richard Nixon ran for vice president as a Republican in 1952.
Here's how he viewed the office.
Assume the Republicans win the election in November.
In case anything should happen to General Eisenhower, do you feel you have the qualification
to carry on the presidency?
I think that the presidency of the United States is the biggest job in the world today.
I doubt that any man could honestly say that he felt that he was the best man qualified
to be either the president or the vice president of the United States.
All that I can say is this, that I've been selected as the nominee for the vice president.
I'm going to work as hard as I can to nominate the man that I think will make the best president
that this country has had in many, many years.
I think the country needs this man.
And I hope that he will be president a long time, four years, possibly eight years.
As far as I'm concerned, I only hope that during that same period while he is president,
I can do everything that he feels is necessary for me to do to help him and that I can qualify
myself to step into the position in the event that that becomes necessary.
And as I say again, I hope that it does not become necessary.
The vice presidency is important.
Since World War II, 12 men have served as vice president, five have gone on to become
president.
And we'll be right back.
Tonight on Dateline.
Thanks, Tim.
With some of the biggest stars in sports and movies today giving glowing testimonials about
increased muscle and endurance and decreased body fat, consumers have turned sports supplements
into a booming business.
But is there any scientific proof that the sales pitch is true?
Find out tonight on Dateline at 7, 6 Central.
Tim.
Thanks, Jane.
And join Tom Brokaw tonight at 9 p.m. for complete coverage and analysis of the first
presidential debate.
Meet the Press, now on the Internet at the MSNBC website.
That's all for today.
We'll be back next week.
Once again, our guest will be Vice President Al Gore.
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