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PAT BUCHANAN DISCUSSES THE EMERGING ISSUES IN CAMPAIGN 2000 CNN BOTH SIDES WITH JESSE JACKSON - http://www.cnn.com/ May 16, 1999

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT JESSE JACKSON, HOST: Welcome to BOTH SIDES. My guest this week is a leading conservative voice who never minces words on the issues of the day and is on a new quest to win the White House. He's Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Pat, welcome to the program. PAT BUCHANAN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thank you very much, Jesse. Good to be here. JACKSON: I'll get to my conversation with Pat in a moment, but first this report from Jonathan Aiken. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JONATHAN AIKEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is a call he has heard and heeded twice before, but Patrick J. Buchanan is betting that run number three for the White House will be the charm. BUCHANAN: With this campaign, and I want to direct this to my friends back in Washington, I intend to redefine what it means to be a conservative in America. AIKEN: Buchanan's message this time around is similar to that of his previous campaigns. He's advocating an America where abortion is outlawed, prayer in public schools is allowed and stringent patrols of the nation's borders. But unlike many fellow Republicans, Buchanan is proudly protectionist when it comes to American jobs. BUCHANAN: I will use the trade laws of this country and my authority as president to protect the jobs of our workers, the standard of living of our American families. AIKEN: It's a message that's resonating with workers in New Hampshire, where the economy has rebounded since Buchanan made a suprisingly strong showing in that state's 1992 presidential primary and where he won in 1996. UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: To protect the United States. America first, that's what I like. UNIDENTIFIED CITIZEN: You read about all the jobs that are lost to Mexico and I see Pat Buchanan as the only person who is speaking for the person who makes things in this country. AIKEN: While he has carved out a niche as GOP maverick on worker and trade issues, Buchanan's quest for the White House this time is facing a different hurdle, a crowded field of conservative Republicans. Candidates like Dan Quayle, Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer are all pressing social agendas similar to Buchanan's. And although both have yet to officially declare, Texas Governor George Bush and Elizabeth Dole are leading polls among likely Republican voters around the country. Political observers differ on Pat Buchanan's chances this time around. But they all agree that despite the odds, you can't count him out. For BOTH SIDES, I'm Jonathan Aiken. (END VIDEOTAPE) JACKSON: Pat, we are the world's superpower with some responsibility to secure freedom for people around the world as a way of keeping the world stable. More than a million folk have been driven out of Kosovo. They're now in exile. They were driven out by something called ethnic cleansing and the like. Why shouldn't the U.S. stand up for those people who have been driven out? BUCHANAN: I think we do have a humanitarian interest in helping those people, Jesse, and also in bringing 'em back inside Kosovo, which is their country, because I believe we bear a certain moral responsibility for a war which ignited the ethnic cleansing by Mr. Milosevic. But we have no vital interest in the Balkans that justifies going to war there, I believe, in the beginning. We have none that justifies a permanent military presence in the Balkans. So I would end this war as quickly as possible, bring the American troops out and try to get those folks back into their country. JACKSON: So you at least agree with President Clinton and Madeleine Albright that there is a moral purpose here, that the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the genocidal policies, you would agree, therefore, that they should be allowed to return home with security and dignity and would you support a multinational peacekeeping force that's armed? BUCHANAN: Oh, I certainly would if one is going to be allowed in there, Jesse. I believe we've got a moral obligation to help them. I think the president's motives were not bad in igniting this war but I think it was a terrible blunder because he didn't think through what would happen. We now know that the ethnic cleansing he went in there to stop has exploded, the Balkans are destabilized, Milosevic is stronger, the Russian people are alienated, the Chinese people are alienated. We've got to behave like DeGaulle when he found out that he inherited Algeria. It's time to cut your losses and end it. JACKSON: So what was thought to be a seven day bombing spree has become nearly eight weeks now of bombing and Milosevic has not folded. He has gotten politically stronger. Pat, what went wrong? BUCHANAN: Well, I question the whole premise that you can alter the mind of a tough minded tyrant like Mr. Milosevic by destroying and crippling his country and damaging his people. Jesse, we saw Saddam Hussein stand up under the most punishing air strikes for six weeks by General Schwarzkopf's army. He is still in power despite the fact we virtually destroyed the country. There are thousands of Iraqi children who die each month because of American sanctions and he's not buckled. We should have observed that and seen that these tough minded tyrants can stand up to air strikes. JACKSON: So you accept the mission as being a moral mission but you are questioning the ineffectiveness of the tactics, I gather? BUCHANAN: I question the policy, Jesse, and I also question the idea of whether America should ever go to war against a country or go get involved in a civil war where there's no vital interests engaged. JACKSON: All right, now you are running for the presidency and there are a series of unintended consequences developing here. First, we didn't intend to need the U.N. We now need the U.N. and we need the Russian-Chinese vote which, of course, is in jeopardy to some extent. We thought that we would be surgical and not hit civilians. There are 500 civilians dead, 4,000 wounded. We thought that we would not hit an embassy like the Chinese embassy. We did. We see unintended consequences mounting. How do you cut these losses and protect the dignity of the battle to stop the violence in Kosovo? BUCHANAN: Well, I don't, in an air war like this, our air force has been superb. It's dropped thousands of laser guided munitions and only several dozen have gone awry and really done grave damage. Now that is horrendous when you see the consequences of it in pictures of the people on the bus, on the train, in the Chinese embassy. There is no way to prevent collateral damage, Jesse. In my view, if we can get Milosevic to agree to international peacekeeping forces I not only don't care if Americans aren't in that peacekeeping force, I don't want them there. If they go in they will be shot in the back by revenge minded Serbs and it would be another act of folly to put American troops in the peacekeeping force. JACKSON: So you do not support America being a part of a multinational peacekeeping force. If not America, who, Pat? If not America, who? BUCHANAN: Well, it, look, if the British and French want to do it, fine. But if you've got NATO troops, there's a number of NATO countries. There's the, the Norwegians are NATO, the Danes are NATO. I don't know that the Germans, you want to bring them in there for historic reasons. The Spanish, the Portuguese, the Greeks, the Russians. Bring 'em in there, if they want a U.N. presence, I don't object to that. But Jesse, if we've got no vital interests, as long as it's a peacekeeping force that can let the refugees come back, give them a measure of protection, that's all we want. JACKSON: Pat, needless to say if America steps back from NATO and it disintegrates and we become de facto isolationists we, in fact, jeopardize the whole world. I'll be right back with more in a moment with more conversation with Pat Buchanan. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) JACKSON: Welcome back. We're talking with presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, author and former talk show host on CNN. Pat, this week Washington had a blast from the past, Newt Gingrich. Here's what Newt Gingrich had to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NEWT GINGRICH (R), FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: I want to say to the elite of this country, the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite, I accuse you in Littleton and I accuse you in Kosovo of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made and being afraid to take responsibility for the things you have done and instead foisting on the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don't have the courage to look at the world you have created. (END VIDEO CLIP) JACKSON: Pat, Pat? BUCHANAN: Yes, sir? JACKSON: Isn't that scapegoating tired rhetoric? BUCHANAN: Well, I think in the case of Kosovo it is inaccurate in the sense that the United States Senate approved what Mr. Clinton started in Kosovo. In Littleton, I do believe, Jesse, that those schools were in part created by an ACLU which drove Christianity, the Ten Commandments, god and all moral instruction out so that something came in to poison the minds of those 17 year olds to the point where they thought it was a great way to go out to slaughter classmates and murder themselves. JACKSON: Pat, but wouldn't you say easy access to guns and glorification of violence as a way of solving problems on the mass media, hasn't that created a new climate in the country generally? BUCHANAN: I think the guns, Jesse, you grew up in, I believe in South Carolina. You knew probably your family had guns. Guns were all over the place. What has changed, you're right, is the romanticization of violence in the popular culture by Hollywood and the entertainment industry and I must say I am ashamed to see Bill Clinton this weekend go buck raking in Hollywood for a million and a half dollars without at least addressing and condemning the people in Hollywood who are polluting and poisoning this culture. JACKSON: Pat, but you also suggest that the absence of prayer in school, the absence of Christianity is a big factor. We have a nation of many religions. BUCHANAN: Right. JACKSON: We are more than a Christian nation, we're a nation of religious freedom. I remember in the south we had maximum god, maximum prayer and maximum racial segregation. And so you can't just lean on religion as a way of stopping the violence. BUCHANAN: Well, Jesse, the thing to do was the maximum god and the maximum prayer and the maximum Ten Commandments were right. The segregation was wrong. I think we could end the segregation and keep what is good about the kind of education you got. JACKSON: I think that's right but Pat. You know, I am convinced that we're going to have prayer in school, as long as you have exams on Friday and teach physics. I'm not sure we need no legislation, no policy that we need to pray. BUCHANAN: Tell me about it. I studied Latin. JACKSON: We need to study. We need to study. BUCHANAN: I studied Latin, tell me about it. JACKSON: My concern now is that what is, what's really evolving here is when you look at Pearl, Mississippi, you look at Paducah, Kentucky, you look at Littleton, is there's something in the culture that's deeper than just kind of blaming liberals... BUCHANAN: I agree. JACKSON: ... or blaming. BUCHANAN: I agree. JACKSON: I mean I don't think that he helped us very much this week. BUCHANAN: I agree, Jesse, there is something, when kids do that, that is satanic. We've all been involved in school yard fights. You've got cliques. You've got friends. There might even be a racial argument. But whoever thought when we were growing up that you take a gun and kill 10 or 15 or 20 of your classmates, your teachers and yourselves? You're right. Something's in the culture and we all gotta look for the poison and throw it out and find the polluters and name 'em. JACKSON: What does it mean when more conservatives are announcing that you are losing the cultural war? What is meant by conservatives losing the cultural war? BUCHANAN: Well, when a classmate looks a little girl in the face and asks her if she believes in god and when she says yes shoots her in the face, we're losing in the culture war. When you see things happen in society that you describe, Jesse, in terms of violence and hatred and, I think that you're losing the cultural war when you see the raw sex and violence pollute the culture. There was a pretty good culture in the 1950s. I think a lot of things have changed. JACKSON: But... BUCHANAN: I think 35 million abortions. JACKSON: But one of my concerns, Pat, is that we discuss abortion, we discuss prayer, we discuss guns, but 50 million Americans have no health insurance. Every six hours a coal miner dies from black lung disease. We never mention the Appalachian poverty. We never mention the delta poverty. We never mention second class schools, first class jails. We never mention raising the minimum wage for working people. Where are the issues of great substance for work and families? Why is this lost in the presidential debates? BUCHANAN: I don't know why. I started my campaign in Weirton, West Virginia (ph), a good Democratic town out there in West Virginia. I don't know if it's quite in the Appalachians. Those steel workers are threatened by steel being dumped out of inefficient mills in Brazil and Russia and Japan and Indonesia and I said we ought to stand up for those workers. Folks losing manufacturing jobs, Jesse, are the ones losing health insurance. You're exactly right to focus on that. There are two Americas. One is being left out, left behind or stagnant. It's idling its engine while the other is roaring ahead on Wall Street. These ought to be brought up. In the winning economy we ought to all have winners and there's a problem and my campaign is trying to deal with that. Textile workers and steel workers, oil patch workers, you name it. JACKSON: Pat, it is heartening to see you join the Rainbow Coalition. I'll be right back in just a moment. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) JACKSON: Pat, you seem to be the only presidential candidate on the Republican side talking about worker issues. Why is there such a refrain, a distancing from workers at the plant gate among other Republican candidates? BUCHANAN: I don't know, Jesse, but I do know this, it's the fact that we've lost these folks who used to be called Reagan Democrats is the reason why we lost two straight presidential elections and we address these folks, I think, on -- we should be addressing their economic concerns. I mean these are fellows who are working, are men and women who are working but they need a husband and wife both to work to make the kind of money of one man's wage. JACKSON: But Pat, are these Reagan Democrats or Roosevelt Democrats? BUCHANAN: They're both. They're Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson Democrats who voted for Hubert Humphrey and they voted for, frankly, they voted for Nixon and Agnew and for Ronald Reagan and we lost 'em and we walked away from 'em. And I think the way to get to them is deal with these issues you're talking about, economic justice, good manufacturing jobs, getting plants back into this country, getting folks, if you will, out of McDonald's... JACKSON: Pat, what does it mean when you take Mississippi, for example. It's the number two poorest state, rich soil, poor people, your number one senator, Trent Lott, is from Mississippi. It's number one in infant mortality. It's number 50 in personal income. Why aren't southern politicians using their power on things as basic as livable wages and workers' rights to organize and comprehensive health care? Why aren't they dealing with these issues, these what I call plant gate issues? BUCHANAN: I, Jesse, I'll be honest, I don't know why the politicians, what they're saying in Mississippi and why they're saying what they're doing. But I'm running for president and I believe the whole American nation needs to be reindustrialized. We need to start bringing the factories home or rebuilding and recreating them here in Mississippi as well as in Michigan. JACKSON: Will you make a case for labor unions' right to organize across the south because workers who are organized seem to have better wages and better benefits and security plans? BUCHANAN: I do believe in unions' right to organize and individuals' right to join a union. Jesse, I've been a union member almost my whole life, the American Newspaper Guild. I remain in AFTRA even though I don't have to when I'm at CNN and I do believe unions do good things. But I do believe in worker freedom to join or not to join the union. I think if you get the benefits of the union, you've got to pay the union dues. But I think, I don't believe in forcing people to join unions if they don't want to. JACKSON: While you're addressing these worker issues, why are most unions lining up behind Vice President Gore? What do you see there as the reasons are? BUCHANAN: Well, I think traditionally the unions have seen the Democratic Party as the vehicle that best represents their views and best represents working men and women. Republicans, I think, have only, only Richard Nixon, and it was because of the war issue primarily, and, well, he had a good economy then, but Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon are the only two Republicans who really got, say, 40 to 45 percent of union workers and the working Americans. And I think it's because they were, they were much more outside Washington. They were not establishment figures. They're not country club Republicans. JACKSON: The question becomes did they get those votes because they dealt with workers' racial fears or with their economic hopes? We're going to come right back in a few moments, Pat, and close this conversation out. BUCHANAN: All right. JACKSON: We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) JACKSON: Pat, there's a young conservative on the scene who does something called compassionate conservatism. His name is George Bush. It seems, if all goes as it is presently moving, you will holding up his arms in a few months as the leader of your party. BUCHANAN: Yes, that compassionate conservatism sounds like my conservatism with a heart from '92 and '96 and I think we're going to disrupt the plans of our Prince of Wales, if you will, Jesse. JACKSON: But he is, right now he's getting all of this support. Why is he getting so much Republican support? BUCHANAN: Because he's leading in the polls and he's leading Gore and the Republicans are hungry for a winner and they believe he's it and frankly if he comes out on the field and he's Joe Montana he's going to win the nomination. But if he's not, he's going to have to mix it up with some of us, Jesse. JACKSON: Well, before the mixing starts, what do you think is the most critical issue facing America today? BUCHANAN: I think one of the most critical is the new foreign policy that keeps America out of wars that are none of our business and repairs and restores relations with a country like Russia, which has 30,000 nuclear weapons and brings our troops home and gets America focused on what is needed in our own country for a change. JACKSON: Pat, the fact of the matter is on that war that we see, weight weeks of bombing on the one hand and we see more ethnic cleansing on the other. Obviously there is a moment in time now to build a bridge of diplomacy with the U.N., Russia and NATO help build that bridge to end that war with honor. Do you support a pause in bombing to negotiate, as Russia's asking for, and China and other nations around the world? BUCHANAN: Yes. I would support a pause in the bombing and I'm not telling the president what he ought to do but if the president had a pause in that bombing, I would support it. Jesse, I think we ought to end this thing as quickly as we can, as well as we can, and get American troops out of the Balkans. JACKSON: So you don't see a pause as altering our strategic power position in that situation? BUCHANAN: Well, as of right now I would, if I were the president, I would look at a pause certainly if I felt it would do some good and I had some signals. JACKSON: Well, we have the power to fight. The question is do we have the strength to negotiate? That's an awesome challenge for us as this war escalates because if it does not happen fairly soon, it could escalate to a ground war and in my judgment that would be an horrendous, long, enduring nightmare. I hope we'll seize this moment to use our power to close the gap, to heal the breach and to get the Kosovarans back home with honor and security, get a multinational peacekeeping force in place, end genocide, end genocide in Kosovo and leave there with honor. Pat, I want to thank you for being our very special guest today. BUCHANAN: Thank you, Jesse. JACKSON: That's all for this week's program. I'll be back here next Sunday at 5:30 Eastern. Thanks for watching and keep hope alive.