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PAT BUCHANAN ON THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, HIS BELIEFS, AND OUR ROLE IN KOSOVO CNBC: HARDBALL - http://www.cnbc.com/ CHRIS MATTHEWS May 12, 1999

President BILL CLINTON: I also want to put him on notice that I expect him to show up here regularly for the next two years until we're done for lots of free advice. I used to joke that Bob Rubin came to Washington to help me save the middle class, and he'd stayed so long that by the time he left, he'd be one of them. CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: That was the president talking about Bob Rubin. I have to say, I have a little interjection. I didn't plan to do this. Pat Buchanan, thank you for joining us tonight. Mr.PAT BUCHANAN (Republican, Presidential Candidate): Delighted. MATTHEWS: Thanks for being on. Mr.BUCHANAN: Thanks for having me back, Chris. MATTHEWS: How's the campaign going? Mr.BUCHANAN: It's going very well. We just got back from 12 days. We did the commencement speech at The Citadel, and we're here this week. MATTHEWS: Your kind of place. All men. Mr.BUCHANAN: Oh, no. Oh, no. It's a wonderful place. MATTHEWS: Are there any women in there yet? Mr.BUCHANAN: I shook hands with the first woman graduate, Nancy Mace. MATTHEWS: Really. Wow. Mr.BUCHANAN: Exactly. And... MATTHEWS: You're for that? Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, I was opposed to the--I think The--The Citadel should have been allowed to maintain its integrity and its independent and its own identity, rather than have federal court tell it what to do. But they've handled it magnificently when the court did it. MATTHEWS: Generally, that--that argument there, that storyline is familiar to you--opposed to change. Is that Pat Buchanan? Mr.BUCHANAN: No, I--no, I'm not opposed to change, but I am opposed to government-mandated change... MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...which sits on top of a small institution and tries to dictate to it an idea of diversity in which that particular institution doesn't believe. I don't think--if we're talking diversity, why can't there be an all-men's college? There are only two left in the country. MATTHEWS: Well, the pres... Mr.BUCHANAN: Why do they all have to look the same? MATTHEWS: I agree with you. I--I--I've been urged by the person in my ear to move on to Kathleen Willey. The president obviously believes in diversity: Monica, Kathleen, Hillary, Paula. Mr.BUCHANAN: Well--well, my view on that is goodbye to all that, frankly. I was doing that on "Crossfire," and I'm glad it's gone and behind us, quite frankly, although, I notice you've been working on it for about a half-hour here. MATTHEWS: Well, because we had a woman on and we were trying to clean up the leese ends--loose ends. We had last week a trial in which there was a mistrial. And maybe that's a goo way to end it? Do you think it is? Just it with a mistrial and a perjury count left un--unfulfilled and let it just--you wouldn't bring the case up again? Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, I don't have any--if I were--if I were Starr, I would have no interest in pursuing it. No, I don't know what the--what the mistrial was over or whether the jury was hung 11 to 1 or whatever. But I certainly have no interest in it. And it's--that's up to Mr. Starr. MATTHEWS: Let's talk about the key grown-up policy of the president. What do you think it was about Bill--and, Mike Barone's sticking with us. He can jump in here. What are you thinking about--we saw President Clinton come to town in 1992 with a very mixed bag of opening signals: Gays in the military, things like that, that got all messed up, the terrible time of picking an--an attorney general, Kimba Wood, Zoe Baird, the whole problem with Lani Guinier, all confusion in his effort to try to make the first woman ever attorney general before he knew who that first woman was, which he ended up with Janet Reno. And yet, he picked grown-ups. I mean, real powerhouses. And I don't just mean men. He picked Alice Rivlin and--and Leon Panetta and Lloyd Bentsen and Bob Rubin, real grown-ups to put together the economy. And it really did. These guys didn't blow up the economy with a lot of spending. They ran lower deficits each year until they finally got rid of the deficits. What do you think--why do you think Bill Clinton took that part of his governing seriously, and in the other parts, he played the political games with? Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, I think most--most presidents do that. Like Richard Nixon was deeply concerned about foreign policy. He got Henry Kissinger in his White House, who was a Rockefeller man, because that's what he cared about. And he once told me, 'I want somebody in there who can teach me something, and...' MATTHEWS: Wow. Mr.BUCHANAN: '...not some--somebody I have to teach something.' And he--but his best appointment clearly has been Alan Greenspan. I think Bill Clinton--there's no doubt he's gonna get credit for a great economy, but he's the beneficiary of luck. People don't realize it, but George Bush's final three months in office, the economy was growing at 6 percent. So Mr. Bush took the--the downside and it was starting up, and so it's been growing ever since. But Mr. Clinton inherited a terrific situation. Greenspan deserves enormous credit, too, for keeping it going. No doubt about it. Rubin has been a tremendous success. The stock market has tripled. No doubt about it. MATTHEWS: That's the usual game of politics in this country. If you get the economy rolling, you win. Mr. MICHAEL BARONE (US News & World Report): Would you--Pat, would you reappoint Alan Greenspan to Federal Reserve chairman if you got the re--reappointment, which may come to the next president because... Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, I certainly would not commit myself ahead of time. I do think we're in a bubble market and a bubble economy. Mr. Greenspan is pumping out the money so fast. He's doing it for the world economy. But he's pumping it out so fast, the economy is so high that people think they're richer than ever, and they're spending like crazy. And the American consumer's keeping the whole world going. I wouldn't say whether I would or wouldn't. Mr. BARONE: What would be the economic policy we should follow if that--if you--from your bubble prescription? What's your view? Mr.BUCHANAN: My--my disagreement with Mr. Rubin and Mr. Clinton is this. They are presiding over the deindustrialization of the United States of America. We've had a fewer share.... MATTHEWS: Right. Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...of manufacturing jobs than ever in history. Textile jobs we're losing tens of thousands every months. And you're getting two economies in this country. Everybody's got a job, but if you talk to working folks, everyone of them's got his wife in a job, too, and they're coming home to a house--the kids are coming home home in the afternoon to empty houses. MATTHEWS: Well--OK, let's talk about that. I talked about it on the show many months ago. It seems to me when we were all growing up in the '50s, if a kid--and let's face it, in those days everybody--we didn't go to college. At least you and I. I mean, most kids went--got jobs when they're 17, 18 years old or went in the service. And when they went to work, they knew that even if their girlfriend was pregnant--and you may not like it--but they would take--they could take responsibility for that situation... Mr.BUCHANAN: Sure. MATTHEWS: They could go off and get a real guy's job somewhere at a factory, like Bud in Philadelphia, and make the equivalent of--today--of 15 bucks an hour--or 20 bucks. And they could provide for a family in an industrial blue-collar job. Today, a kid in that exact same situation cannot provide for a family. Mr.BUCHANAN: Exactly. MATTHEWS: Now how do you get back there? I know we want to get back there in many ways because we like the high-tech jobs, but we want the brawny kind of guy jobs. The real working man kind of--how do you get those jobs back? Those factories are closed. They're closed all over Philadelphia, up and down the river they're closed. They're all tennis courts out there now and--and restaurants tha--that have been yuppified. You say you want to bring it back. That's nostalgia, Pat. Mr.BUCHANAN: It's not nostalgia. MATTHEWS: Bring it back. How do you do it? Mr.BUCHANAN: It is simple as pie. But I grew up just as you did. We--the fellow that lived right almost two doors away from my father in Georgetown--he was a junior accountant with four kids. MATTHEWS: Well, I didn't grow up in Georgetown. Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, Georgetown was a different place. MATTHEWS: OK. Mr.BUCHANAN: But he--was an Irish Catholic parish and he was a plumber and he had two or three kids, and they were on the same level. The printers made more money than I did when I was in St. Louis as a young journalist. Every one of them did. They're gone now. Here's now--it's very simple how you bring it back. It is the same Hamiltonian economics that began the industrialization of America. How did we go from an agricultural country to the greatest industrial empire the world had ever seen in a single century? It is very simple. If you structure your trade and tariff and tax policies, it can be done. Imports carry the burden of taxation, and you cut taxes on working people. MATTHEWS: This go-it-alone, America-first policy has a wonderful nostalgic ring. But here's the ques... Mr.BUCHANAN: It is not go it alone. It is not go it alone. MATTHEWS: Well, it... Mr.BUCHANAN: You want trade because you need--you need the imports to pay the taxes. MATTHEWS: OK. What do we do with Mexico? We've got this country that can't--every once in a while we think it's gonna make it into the--into the first or second world. Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: And it's--it's--lingers there. It's always on the verge maybe making it next year. Like Brazil certainly probably made it now. Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: But they were on the verge of bankruptcy a couple years ago, and Bob Rubin went in there and took a lot of heat from guys like you and saved that economy. Wouldn't you have done the same thing? Mr.BUCHANAN: Saved the economy? Look, they had 30 percent in the poverty level when he started, they're at 50 percent now. He saved Goldman Sachs, he saved the government of Mexico. There's no doubt, in the maquiladora era, there are one million jobs in manufacturing now. Those folks are doing well. They're making $ 6, $ 8, $ 10 an hour. MATTHEWS: The ones on the border. Mr.BUCHANAN: Yeah, on the border. But those are jobs that used to belong to American workers. With Mexico, I agree with you, Chris. That is not simply an economic--that's an economic and political problem for us. You cannot take the factories away from Mexico, but you can stop shipping more factories to Mexico. And you've got to include Mexico basically in a new policy which is gonna deal with, frankly, no more export, but they can keep what they have. Mr. BARONE: Would you renegotiate NAFTA? Mr.BUCHANAN: I would certainly renegotiate NAFTA. MATTHEWS: But don't... Mr.BUCHANAN: I would renegotiate NAFTA and I'll tell you, we have a $ 300 billion merchandise trade deficit on an annualized level. In February, everybody will tell you you've got a current account deficit. You can't keep that up. And you have a right--America's got a right to get rid of that as much as we got rid of our other deficit. MATTHEWS: OK. Coming up next, we're gonna talk about the biggest country in the world, is it our enemy, friend or whatever. We're talking, obviously, the country that's sending money over here to influence our politics, China. We'll be right back. (Announcements) (From "Meet the Press") Secretary BILL RICHARDSON (Energy Department): The Chinese have obtained damaging information. Mr. TIM RUSSERT (Host): During the Clinton presidency? Sec. RICHARDSON: We are--we are addressing the problem. Mr. RUSSERT: During the Clinton presidency? Sec. RICHARDSON: During past administrations and present administrations. Mr. RUSSERT: Finally, someone has acknowledged. Sec. RICHARDSON: But we are dramatically taking steps to deal with it. (End of excerpt) MATTHEWS: Well, that was an amazing interview this past Sunday 'cause Tim Russert managed to get it--a man I very much respect and like, Bill Richardson--to admit the fact that the president was notified about this problem and he can't blame Sandy Berger, his national security chief, for not letting the president know that there was security risk and loss of United States--important materials and information about nuclear weaponry on our--this administration's watch. Pat Buchanan, this goes back to, like, the '40s and the early '50s, where administrations like the Truman administration were not sensitive to security risks and they didn't act on it. They covered up their own crowd. This Mr. Lee somehow gets--he's a target month after month, year after year of investigation, and they say, 'Well, just take your time. Keep your job.' Mr.BUCHANAN: You know, you're exactly right. Mr. Lee--what was he--they found him out in 1995. He wasn't even fired--Was it?--till early this year. MATTHEWS: No. Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: That's four years. Three years after they picked up the Rosenbergs they had been electrocuted. The difference is this. The America you and I grew up in in the 1940s and furious '50s was a deadly serious country. America is not a serious country today. This looting of the warheads--it is unbelievable; neutron bomb, the W-88, miniaturized warheads. Fox broadcast all the names of the different warheads stolen, and people don't care. And so we are not a serious country, but we will be one again. Our times are like the 1920s. You know, the stocks and the flappers and the scandals. Everybody had a good time. MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: All of a sudden the Japanese moved into Manchuria and then they moved into China and Hitler came to power and we were in a serious era. MATTHEWS: OK. There's something missing here then. Your argument--and I think it's true, I'm not as--I'm certainly not a right-winger like you, Pat--but I would--I think you're right about this one. When we grew up--when Stalin died in 1954... Mr.BUCHANAN: '3, right. Mr. BARONE: '53. MATTHEWS: '53. I remember the nuns saying in school, 'Stalin is dead, let us pray.' And to this day I have no idea what the supplication was. What were we praying for? Mr.BUCHANAN: Pray--praying for the repose of his soul. MATTHEWS: Right. But the fact of the matter--he was, like, the ultimate menace of our times. We had a very Manichaean sense. Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: Those Commies were the bad guys, we were the good guys. I don't sense in the kids around the president, the ones that wouldn't even get the security clearances when they came to the White House, who trashed the--the general that was on the property one day and don't--don't participate--they don't seem to have a gut sense that the Chinese are Communists and they're a problem and although we have to deal with them in the world 'cause we certainly don't want to go to war with a billion people, don't treat them like our pals. And then yet we have these... Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, you know, Chris... MATTHEWS: You know, Mr. Lee is part of all these trade fairs down in Los Alamos. We're--we're running an education bee down there for the Chinese teaching them how to use everything we've got. We think it's hands across the border. Isn't there a problem of not knowing who your enemy is? Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, this is--you're exactly right. This--this group in the White House now inherited a victory in the Cold War that a lot of these folks in the White House did very little or nothing to win. As a matter of fact, many of them were sabotaging American policy or demonstrating against it during Vietnam in that era, when a lot of serious men like Eisenhower and Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and Reagan were winning this Cold War. So they inherit a situation where we're the lone superpower in the world. We just smashed Iraq. We're the king of the--of the world. Now they've got themselves a problem in Kosovo, and I don't think they know how to deal with it because they thought all we had to do is tell this guy, 'Shape up,' smack him a couple of times and he would buckle. And they found someone who didn't buckle, and they don't know what to do. Mr. BARONE: Pat... MATTHEWS: Another Ho Chi Minh. Mr. BARONE: Well, Pat, what would--the question then is this--this isn't the policy you would have followed. You--you suggest otherwise. But if you were president right now, what would you do? What should we do as a country? Mr.BUCHANAN: We have a humanitarian interest in taking care of those people who are in a disastrous situation because of a war we ignited. Now we didn't do it, Milosevic did it. You've got a humanitarian interest. We've got no vital interests whatsoever in whose flag flies where in the Balkans. I would look for a deal. And in that deal I would make sure there's not a single American soldier left in the Balkans when this thing is over. You ought to have a conference in Berlin like Bismarck did in 1878 where they divided up the Balkans, self-determination to the degree possible. You're not gonna make everybody happy. Bring international--bring in... MATTHEWS: Yeah. Mr. BARONE: Would that--would that include Russians, too? Mr.BUCHANAN: Bring Russian troops in there, but the Chinese are the latest one to come in. I would say no to that. Russians and Germans and French and British, and tell them, 'Look, this is your problem now. The Americans are going home.' You know, Eisenhower told us--told Kennedy in 1961, 'Take the troops home, President Kennedy, because otherwise you'll have dependencies on your hand.' MATTHEWS: Let's go back to China for just a second. Mr.BUCHANAN: He was dead right. MATTHEWS: I want to run through a couple of points. You're running for president, Pat. You're no longer a commentator so I've got to nail you down about three or four things. One, Chinese espionage in the United States. I don't know how big it was. It clearly involved a total package, though, of--as you pointed, every weapon system we've got at the highest level. State-of-the art information. This guy had it all in his computer wheel. Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: Heads should roll? That's what Chris Dodd says. Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, obviously, at these laboratories and at the--yes, heads should roll. No doubt about it. I don't know exactly whose. But heads should roll when you get... MATTHEWS: How about the president's head if he knew about it? Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, the president of the United States shouldn't be impeached, but I don't--I mean--do I believe the president of the United States knew... MATTHEWS: Knew about this? Mr.BUCHANAN: Look I think he probably, as Richardson's indicated--look, he's probably putting out phony stories again. But do I think he gave away the secrets for money? No. MATTHEWS: You don't believe there was an overlay with Loral, with Bernard Schwartz and ...(unintelligible)? Mr.BUCHANAN: I think that Loral and those folks--I think the waivers and things like that could have been influenced... MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...but if you're talking nuclear weapons, I don't think so. MATTHEWS: Let's talk about the principles of foreign policy because you represent... Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: ...I think, the tough arch--arch conservative wing of the Republican Party. By the way, how did you react to David Duke saying he favors your candidacy on this program the other day? I have to ask you this. Mr.BUCHANAN: I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it. I just said, you know, we... MATTHEWS: You saw it on tape on another show. Come on, I saw you... Mr.BUCHANAN: I saw it on the tape--I saw it on the tape on another show. Look--you know, Jack Kennedy, how did he react... MATTHEWS: You brought... Mr.BUCHANAN: ...when the Daily Worker--the Daily Worker said, 'We prefer Kennedy to Nixon'? MATTHEWS: Well, how much has Duke sent you, anything? Mr.BUCHANAN: No. He has not sent me anything. MATTHEWS: Would you--would you be comfortable with him on your ticket? Mr.BUCHANAN: I don't care if he endorsed me. His--his chances are minimal. Look, I'd be... MATTHEWS: About being on your ticket. Mr.BUCHANAN: I'm the only Republican--I'm one of the only ones besides George Bush who's ever beaten David Duke in the primary before this time. MATTHEWS: OK, let's--well, let's talk about--I--I've got to observe that later. Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: That's too deep for me. Let's talk about principles of foreign policy. Very conservative Pat Buchanan foreign policy. Here's my question. Principle. We've lived through the Second World War. And I'm not sure there should have been a Second World War 'cause there was a First World War... Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: ...is the reason there was a Second World War. You can argue maybe we didn't do this century right. Mr.BUCHANAN: You're exactly right. MATTHEWS: Maybe we should have stayed out of one, and then we wouldn't have had a Hitler or little corporal running us into the Holocaust. But here's a principle question. If the United States confronts a country in Europe, in the backyard of many of the people in this country, 90 percent of us or 85 percent of us, should we stop what looks like at least a ground-level genocidal effort? Should we say that's a principle we're gonna adhere to, never again. We didn't get into World War II until Hitler declared war on us, but this time, we're gonna stop a guy from doing it. Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, look, of course, when the so-called or--look, the--the holocaust in the Ukraine and the Holocaust in World War II are different. When the Holocaust in World War II occurred, the United States was already at war. We were doing everything we could to defeat Hitler. What should we have done when we found out about the holocaust in the Ukraine, the five million who starved to death? Should we have declared war? You couldn't have, Chris. You couldn't have. It's a nice thing to say you should have. What we shouldn't have done was ha--like FDR did--is bring their foreign minister over there, and recognize them and say, in effect, these are co-progressives the way we did. But what you do you do now if you've got a... MATTHEWS: In Kosovo. Mr.BUCHANAN: Kosovo is not America's problem. If anybody--if it's anybody's problem, it is Europe's problem. And the Europe... MATTHEWS: But if somebody is going into houses with these teams with ski masks on by the tens of thousands and killing people and chasing them out of their country... Mr.BUCHANAN: Chris... MATTHEWS: ...shouldn't we do something? Mr.BUCHANAN: All right, the Russians did it in Chechnya. It's being dealt--done in half a dozen countries in Africa. You've lost a million or more in the Sudan. In East Timor this fellow we bailed out... MATTHEWS: We're not doing it--that's like these Republicans come on the show, 'We're not doing it in Sierra Leone, we're not doing it in the Horn of Africa.' Mr.BUCHANAN: They're doing it in East Timor, in east Europe. MATTHEWS: Of course, we're not, but this is Europe. Mr.BUCHANAN: East Timor... MATTHEWS: Aren't you a Europeanist? Mr.BUCHANAN: I'm a Catholic, and 250,000 Catholics were murdered by the... MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...regime in Indonesia we just bailed out. MATTHEWS: I know. Mr.BUCHANAN: Now what do you do? MATTHEWS: Well, you don't do nothing, do you? Mr.BUCHANAN: I don't think you invade. And what you have to do is you've got to take a look at the situation. And it's feel good to say, 'We've got a strong military and we have to go over and invade.' I mean, if they do it in five different places, what do you do? MATTHEWS: OK, out of time. More of Pat Buchanan coming back. We're going to talk about Elizabeth Dole and guns. And what she's been saying and what Pat has to say about what she's been saying. You're watching HARDBALL. (Announcements) Mrs. ELIZABETH DOLE (Republican Presidential Hopeful): (From May 11, 1999) While I'm a strong supporter of the Second Amendment, I simply cannot accept that in modern America you need an AK-47 to defend your family. MATTHEWS: What's going on there, Pat? That's a political movement there. Mr.BUCHANAN: Yeah. I think it's a conscious decision to take the--if you will--the liberal side of the issue on the--on the gun issue in New Hampshire and to--you know, as FDR went before one group and called them fellow immigrants. MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: In other words, take the other side. MATTHEWS: Is there--is there an opportunity in the Republican left? Are there enough Republican moderates? They're called moderates, but they're basically liberals. Are there enough of them out there to win the presidential nomination next time around? Mr.BUCHANAN: I don't think--I'll say this. I--Bill Schneider talked today and--the way I've been talking--there are two primaries, Chris. One of them is for the party establishment, party favorite nominee, in which you've got Miss--Ms. Dole and... MATTHEWS: John McCain... Mr.BUCHANAN: ...George Bush and Lamar Alexander and John McCain. And the other is, if you will, for the conservative populist outsider challenger. It's--it always comes down to that. And I think Ms. Dole is in that first primary. But I--I'm inclined to think Mr. Bush is strongly, strongly favored and I don't think she can beat him. And I don't think this is the way to do it. MATTHEWS: You just set that up like the 1950s baseball leagues with you and the American League as the only Yankees... Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, it is. MATTHEWS: ...in the league. Mr.BUCHANAN: No, no. MATTHEWS: You've got the National League with all the powerhouses. Mr.BUCHANAN: No, I agree--no, I agree we're in the National League. I mean, they--and--and so... MATTHEWS: Who else is your strongest competitor for that anti-establishment wing vote? Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, I think--I think you've got, obviously, Vice President Forbes--I mean, Vice President Quayle. MATTHEWS: Yeah. Mr.BUCHANAN: And Steve Forbes has an enormous amount of money. He is the wild card because he's got enough money to be defeated a number of times and still show up in California. MATTHEWS: He can hang in there until the very e--well, right till the last... Mr.BUCHANAN: Sure. MATTHEWS: Well, March 7th. Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, last time he was--it was four or five--I mean, he ran fourth every time until he just waited for a primary and he put $ 5 million into Arizona. MATTHEWS: Let me ask you this--I--I'm getting--I always get these messages in my ear and I always think that I should do something with them. Mr.BUCHANAN: All right. Give my best to ...(unintelligible). MATTHEWS: And one of my messages is--that's right. The message tonight is that I have not given you a chance to identify yourself, that I have taken the--taken the leave to tell you what you are. Describe yourself with n--with commonly used terms to describe your point of view politically about this country's future. Mr.BUCHANAN: I'm very much an--an economic patriot or economic nationalist. I believe the national economy rather than the global economy is what we ought to work on. I'm a traditionalist Republican, who after the Cold War, which we had to fight, which was our war, I believe very much now with the Robert Taft idea that America ought to be the strategic reserve of Western civilization, not again a front-line fighting state unless you've got a situation such as we had with a Hitler or a Stalin. And I'm very much a traditionalist on social and cultural issues. And I'm a believer in decentralization, the devolution of power to states and back to people. So I've got a lot of--there are three or four threads in there, part Libertarian, traditionalist, conservative and populist. MATTHEWS: Where's the Libertarian piece of your life? Where--where--I don't think of you that way. Mr.BUCHANAN: I think--I'm very much a believer in downsizing the federal government. And the Libertarians would agree with me almost 100 percent on foreign policy. They think we ought to move our troops out of Europe.... MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...let the Europeans defend themselves. Maintain a tremendously strong defense... MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...but we're not a front-line fighting state. MATTHEWS: I spoke to a group you're very fond of the other night. Mr.BUCHANAN: Right. MATTHEWS: I mean, it's intel--I'm just kidding about you, but I think they're a great group, the Log Cabin Republicans. Mr.BUCHANAN: Yeah. MATTHEWS: The--they're gay Republican guys. They're all Libertarians, they're all business guys. They're very Republican in every other way. Their lifestyle's different, obviously. What I liked about these guys is they really are Libertarians. They say, 'Leave us alone.' Are you... Mr.BUCHANAN: But they don't believe that, see? MATTHEWS: They don't? Mr.BUCHANAN: They want--no. Because they want the federal government--they want the federal government to come in and say, 'If Chris Matthews doesn't hire an openly gay person, Chris Matthews can be disgraced and can be fined and even imprisoned.' MATTHEWS: Well, isn't that just anti-discrimination law? Mr.BUCHANAN: But they want the federal government to impose their values on you. MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: And so they call themselves Libertarians, but they don't want you to be free to make decisions based on--on your ideas or beliefs or what they would call your prejudice. So they really don't believe in basic freedom like that. MATTHEWS: Hmm. What do you think, Michael? Mr. BARONE: Well, I think--I mean, I think Pat's made an argument there. We're both making arguments for and against that policy. MATTHEWS: Well, let's talk about... Mr.BUCHANAN: How prudent do you think it is, Michael? Mr. BARONE: Well, I think one of the interesting things is that the Congress recently voted... Mr.BUCHANAN: But gee, I--I do believe--gee, I think MATTHEWS: Well, I think the Libertarian argument that most people think of... Mr. BARONE: The Republican Congress recently voted against your position when the--when majority of the Congress voted for ...(unintelligible). Mr.BUCHANAN: Well, I--I don't care what the Congress does. MATTHEWS: Most--most people would say--who are out here, I think, watching tonight have a very simple sense of--of the Republican Party. And there's the establishment of the Republican Party which you've laid out. They're for tr--trade around the world. They're for internationalist foreign policy, getting involved in parts of the world, support the UN, NATO, those kind of things. But on the question of Libertarians, I think there is a--is a real fight here. A lot of people believe, like Bill Weld up in Massachusetts, that you can be a very good Republican and be for gay rights, for a choice on abortion--pro-rights on abortion rights and still call yourself a very good Republican. Mr.BUCHANAN: But I'm not--I'm not interfering with Mr. Weld's decision to hire or fire someone. MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: They want to impose their values on me. But let me say--you have touched on something, on trade, on foreign policy, whether it's NAFTA, GATT, WTO, Bosnia... MATTHEWS: Right. Mr.BUCHANAN: ...there is a deep divide inside this Republican Party that cannot too long endure. And I represent one side of that which is growing stronger. MATTHEWS: What side is that? Mr.BUCHANAN: And--and that's the populist traditionalist, if you will, America-first side. MATTHEWS: Please come back, Pat. You're always welcome here. "Rivera Live"--Michael Barone, thank you for joining us.