.....
LIASSON: Let me ask you about some of the problems you had recently
out in California where Perot supporters in the Reform Party said that
your views on social issues were just too conservative, not centrist
enough for their party. I want to ask you about your relationship with Mr.
Perot. When's the last time you talked to him or met with him?
BUCHANAN: Oh, I can answer that very quickly...
LIASSON: You never appeared to get with him.
BUCHANAN: I haven't talked to Ross Perot in years. All right, as for the
guard in California, I think there's been some misreporting, I believe, in
terms of the delegates to the national convention. I think we're going to
win 80 percent of them out of California. What you're simply getting is
quotes from individuals who do disagree with my nomination. But right
now, they have not been selected half the delegates of the Reform Party
convention.
But we have an overwhelming majority of those selected. We anticipate
being the nominee. We're on schedule to be on all 50 states, and that is
what I'm working on night and day, my sister is, our campaign is,
because once that's done and we come up to September 1st, that's the
key. To be on 50 states. To have that $12.5 million, to get in those
presidential debates to turn this into a three-way race. The rest of it is
horse race nonsense.
LIASSON: Sounds like you don't expect to get Perot's support in your
bid for the nomination?
BUCHANAN: Oh, I don't know that Mr. Perot has not spoken out on any
issues that I've seen in the last year. He has not addressed the Reform
Party nomination contest. My understanding was he welcomed us into
that race. He certainly was not sympathetic to Mr. Ventura who has
since left the party. So I don't know where he stands on this. But we're
well on our way to the nomination...
BARNES: Indeed, I remember in 1992 in particular, your wife Shelly's
been to every one since 1960. Let me ask you about the 2000
Republican Convention where you will not be, ...
WILLIAMS: Pat Buchanan, I think that people view you as a changed
man. They see you out there with the demonstrators in Washington,
demonstrators that someone called anarchists.
BUCHANAN: Collaborating with sea turtles and things like that.
WILLIAMS: Unbelievable, Pat. And now -- and now there's the sense
that, you know, you have quieted your concerns on social issues in order
to get the $12 million that's going to go to the Reform Party candidate.
And so you don't speak out on homosexual issues. You no longer talk
about some of the social issues that have made you a prominent
personality in American politics.
BUCHANAN: Let me resolve that problem for you right now, Juan. I was
out in Seattle because I agreed with Ralph Nader and the sea turtles and
the Teamsters and Howard Phillips on one issue: American sovereignty.
When we pass a law here in the United States, whether I agreed with it
or not, it is the law of the United States and no World Trade Organization
is going to tell us we have to repeal it.
Now, I am the most pro-life candidate in this race. I will have a pro-life
running mate. If elected, I will have a pro-life members of the U.S.
Supreme Court.
With regard to the gay rights agenda, I oppose it. I think that traditional
marriage needs to be reinforced. And there is no element of the gay
rights agenda that I support, including the ideas of homosexuality in the
media. At every place I go, I answer questions to that -- excuse me, not
the media, in the military.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm glad -- I saw that look on your face.
WILLIAMS: What is Pat talking about?
BUCHANAN: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
But in the military.
HUME: Pat, we thought we had news.
(LAUGHTER)
BUCHANAN: That would not be news.
(LAUGHTER)
HUME: No, I wanted to see your plans for getting them out.
(LAUGHTER) ...
WILLIAMS: Now, the money, the $12 million goes directly to you or, I
believe your sister, Bay Buchanan.
BUCHANAN: My sister, that's close enough though.
WILLIAMS: It does not go to the Reform Party.
BUCHANAN: That's right.
WILLIAMS: So essentially what we're talking about here is Pat
Buchanan's party. Forget Ross Perot. Forget Jesse Ventura. Forget the
idea of an independent challenge to the Republicans and Democrats.
BUCHANAN: No. The point is that first, Ventura's out of the Reform
Party. He resigned. We've built a new party in Minnesota. He's out. Ross
Perot is not running to my knowledge.
But the check goes to our campaign, just like the check from the FEC
goes directly to the Bush campaign. It doesn't go to the RNC. And the
check for the Democrats goes directly to the Gore campaign. It doesn't
go to the DNC.
So we are on the same terms as the other two parties except we get one-
fifth of the money they get.
HUME: Pat, let me ask you a question about Alan Keyes.
BUCHANAN: Sure, sure.
HUME: You say you're open to a minority. He qualifies on that. You want
somebody who agrees with you on most issues, particularly on life. He
certainly agrees with you on that. And yet you rather passively say, well,
you think he's going to stay in the party if ...
BUCHANAN: Well, he's indicated as much.
HUME: Have you sought him out? Have you tried to reach him? Have
you tried to recruit him?
BUCHANAN: No, we have not.
HUME: If not, why not?
BUCHANAN: Well, we have not. Basically for this reason: he has
indicated that if he went third party, he would go with Howard Phillips'
party. Secondly, he has indicated he's going to stay with the Republican
Party with a pro-life -- if it has a pro-life running mate.
HUME: With all the persuasive power that you believe you'll be able to
muster with Americans in the debates, you don't think you'll be able to
talk him into going with you?
BUCHANAN: Well, look we have not -- clearly that idea has been
presented. And we have not ruled that out at all. But as I indicated, my
understanding is he's going to stay with the Republican Party. And he's
indicated he would not go with our party because it does not have pro-life
in its platform.
HUME: Now there's some parallels between the critique that you make
of the state of play in America on the economy and that which Ralph
Nader makes, as you've suggested.
But don't you face the same kind of political problem that he does, and
that is the difficulty in the fact that people seem, and by their votes have
shown, that they are satisfied basically with the candidates they're
getting? Polls show they're more satisfied with this crop of candidates
than they've been in many, many an election and that sort of the broad-
based dissatisfaction upon which a candidacy like yours or his would
depend just isn't there.
BUCHANAN: Well, let me dissent there. In 1992, I didn't know whether
that dissent was there in the Republican Party, when I challenged the
President of the United States, who was at 91 percent a few months
earlier. Boom, it exploded. We exploded in 1996. Ross Perot did in 1992
and 1996. Ventura did in Minnesota. He was at 10 percent. All of a
sudden, he wins. John McCain exploded this year.
It is out there. You see people leaving politics, writing it off. You've got
two Xerox copies of one another right now, I believe, running. We believe
that if get out there and we can get the attention for an alternative agenda
for America-first foreign policy, sovereignty, and all these other issues,
that we can ignite it again.
BUCHANAN: Now maybe I'm wrong, but I believe it is out there, Brit.
When you get everybody in the country, what are we down to, 50 percent
voting? People have written it off. It's out there. Ralph mentioned the
farms. There wasn't -- when I ran in '99, there's not a single kind of farm,
cotton, wheat, corn, cattle, beans, hogs, apples, you name it, not a
single farm I went to where the farmer was getting for the price of what he
produced something that compensated him simply at a cost of producing
it.
Look, I believe that in this country right now we have a foreign policy, but
are we going to defend 50 nations non-sustainable. We have a stock
market where values, I believe, are non-sustainable. We got a $450
billion merchandise trade deficit we're running and a current account
deficit, not sustainable.
Now, you may say things are going fine, and maybe they are, but we got
a right and we got an obligation to tell the truth.
HUME: All right, Pat, nice to see you. Thanks for coming in. Hope you'll
come back.
BUCHANAN: Sorry about that media comment there, Juan.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: We forgive you.
