A Word on Words; 2812; Elizabeth Drew

remember ron johnson the once again welcome to word on words the subject the corruption in american politics the author elizabeth drew welcome to word on words and a special guest senator fred thompson republican tennessee welcome fred you figure very prominently in the corruption of american politics in a very popular well we are at the casting from the first amendment center on it that'll university we have a live audience with us elizabeth you have spent two decades in washington and new yorker's washington correspondent you written ten previous books on washington and its politicians you are known as a level headed tough minded fair minded objective balanced journalist and the corruption american politics in virtually make the friends of a thousand euro tell you why

i didn't know i am oh i didn't know senator thompson and i certainly didn't know what i was going to think about him he was part of the story because i wanted to look at what happened after the nineteen ninety six our campaign finance scandals where these could be enough to get change and he was going to be holding hearings on that there are other people in the bar and their other incidents and other examples of what's happened to our politics in twenty five years and i didn't know whether us senator whether the liking or whether he was going to you know you can talk to me i never seen an interception and i said something dorky like setups are not really interested in campaigning is her rumble that mean that was you know i wanna so i thought the hearings would be out there but i wanted to see what was going on behind the scenes in the hearings and what are the pressures that he was going to come up against in

order to look at this question which is terribly important hits it's the nurse of both political parties so after that i called and talk his press secretary said i like to come and talk to him about this the rest is as well i look fasting from a number of points of view there is that traditional wasn't true balance the president the vice president don't come off well but neither does a trent lott come off well neither does the mitch mcconnell two leaders in the united states senate both republicans nor do the republican leaders in the house other than that our veterans fred thompson is true but jonathan he's a family heroes some wolves a year he came out as a sympathetic figure not having no name and having got access to him and talked to him as one long been awesome talking to other members of the committee are his fellow republicans there were

two i guess who were supportive of what he was trying to do and i'm a democrat you hear it being shot at by both sides but i didn't just you know talk to him i talked to others and i just came to feel that he was trying to do the right thing his instincts were right and he was under terrific pressures from the democrats on the committee you are working with the white house and from his own party leaders who trent lott the damage our ears up this is a great idea cast as movie star it as in charge of the hearings but he didn't realize that the center thompson wanted to make a fair and look at both parties and even worse he and mitch mcconnell didn't realize that sara johnson backed campaign finance reform in this was horrible discovery on their part so they set up the underwater and pick and because he wanted to look at both sides including republican vance they set out to undermine an answer here was this man being shot at by

both sides by the interest groups and we want to talk to just get together and decided not to honor a subpoena which is a very it's a it's a first and he was at a time with all of that i still think the hearings were affective and have a positive effect on and bringing up campaign finance reform is there a couple times we shared airplane rides to walk into my act and then the grumbling that though is that the first time you met her i heard a number of times when you were talking about the washington press corps and it's an ability to understand what you thought with korean state in those hearings then and in the country as a result of how money campaign money has corrupted the process all sides why did you give elizabeth through the access them a possible for i think primarily or recognition you described in the beginning

she had written her last book was called whatever it takes was about the last presidential election the significance of soft money when she predicted what software would the comments and how pervasive it would be predicted correctly and it became patterned me that she was going to stick with that story and she was going to show up every day and wants the hearings and actually believe it and that might not sound like much but that's a lot i don't know anybody else who did that nimble and so you had this journalist of her reputation who is actually going to be announced or day in day out it's a sort of thing is not very conducive television cameras show up if you don't have a blockbuster in about fifteen minutes you know they disappear and but if you have a serious journalist who understands what's going on to understand the system understand the nuances and what's significant

what's not invasive altogether and not just the sentence was being uttered that they were not in of itself it's about much our core such then you know some really special so i decided to check was always a chance to work to open up and tell people to basically not everything certainly the ceo about things but that i thought it was important that somewhere along the line some day the american people have a better understanding of what actually happened i think she did that we have all the shows and everything that she may have some issues because a wonderful book won for treatment and i'm just delighted that that there is a place where the future followers of all this could go to get a history of inside workings what happened what is

an absolute best thing about one of the things that you say i am throughout is that the center thompson was frustrated he was frustrated by members of his own party and he was frustrated by democrats on this committee he was frustrated by the unwillingness of television networks to turn the cameras on and leave them on when what was being talked about was the phone live nation's political system and how money was corrupting its talk of you opened with the letter n n and a republican senate caucus then there is the spirit they're about quote the narrow the hearings that summit out of your chair whether the narrow those hearings and such a way is only focus on democratic fund raising and

an immediate as they can play the poet about that same approach seems in a narrow way it sets it's a safer what fallout politically issue pending before the senate have just as the republican conference went to lunch parties have lunch conferences couple times a week and the question was sure the hearings concern themselves not just with the democratic scandals of ninety six but the broader than that and cover or whatever may have happened along the same lines in the republican campaigns the democrats weren't for this senator thompson was for and a couple of his allies as i thought it would only be fair i was i could be the only right thing to do and it would also give the hearings our credibility as opposed to just being painted as partisan which the white house wanted did anywhere but that's another story you do point out that there were three members in their

son a lot earlier senator santorum and mitch mcconnell movies valley where in the first amendment center of some files audience is that the supreme court has said that the money is political speech and therefore can be no imitation saddam and three of them were from our ears and focus but but it was routine of thompson's colleagues that's a week must not narrowly is here for a couple things that happened and my weight on the senator mcconnell's money is speech argument which unfortunately has persuaded a number of journalists and commentators who haven't done their homework i have a whole chapter do you're really dedicated to deconstruct in an argument and i hope people saying well thompson had some allies going and john mccain

susan collins losing anyone yes there were there were few others i use a lot is there are there is a kind of funny that in that this rick santorum come in this book is not entirely that fred thompson i have to run only and it's not a law and it is not just about money that is what has happened to their politics their politicians over the last twenty five years and it is rick santorum of republican of pennsylvania's on was the poster boy of what has gone wrong and ulysses a freshman that he was working his way into this thing and he's not he's a girl helpful he they asked about going back to the charter for the watergate investigations which now fred was the

council isn't of thompson about awarded it well and so in a way it came out that the santorum was picking the wrong example because if it was a president the watergate the watergate argument back problem and so but they failed now when they just go from their watergate we don't look exactly exactly a n n n n and this investment group goes into this into this analysis of why thompson was the ideal person that howard baker and tamarind did cooperate throughout the year and i'm at another senate hearing there have been cooperation and that you had been a counselor watergate committee for gay comedian but then through it to the hearings themselves in the opening statement

the controversy surrounding your opening statement is so it is it seems to me to be a key point in the book as well and while i use the term hero at the outset it's not to say that he won every fight or even many thought on the thunder and then good point and abilities to get things done and trying to get my mom and i guess i see those will probably the moment when i read the national accurately so there's no question about that and you're beginning to get into an area there that i had to the camera fight for over year by myself essentially and that was a miscalculation to a certain extent i'm a i would've done the same thing anyway but the leading off with you know the revelation of what we had seen in classified form and i've been given permission to be aware of

and then and you have to tell the american people that the chinese government basically had developed a plan in place or campaigns and if approved be very controversial i had not done i have not laid my ground work with the media aren't members of the khamenei or anybody else osha official but i wanted that answer and so we know this is where you get oh give me permission to reveal this in a form that will not jeopardize sources that means that will let the american people at least have an insight as to what's going on and they're great and i did it but then the partisan fight started their parents a marker down you are a bottom are so many much it was a right thing to do but

it is more will annex the most important scene that follows of course after the disclosure maiden and you got in terms the evidence suggests and the words suggest they'd also we argued over homework whatever word i said was approved then points out that there is this closed hearing and up comes to recreate the island records and intelligence from the national security agency all of a clear statement before you make it so that when john glenn has declined to go along with that statement he won't join in that statement but let's talk a little bit about that scene in which these three people were clearly displayed and then show up for all the committee an ngo finds the latest at one point about them why it may be that i came to like and admire sen thompson you just heard it mean in a very candid

statement here it's an arab politicians who will tsai well i miss calculation but elias on the day before the hearings going up to his office the afternoon for where they began and he said to me i make a statement about china is has been raised more questions and those cameras also he knew and the other thing that he has not said that has been proven right and it's still going on now is finding out about where the justice department may have in fact interferes with an fbi investigation of some of the people involved and i must say that i called him into several times when these things would come out and he never bloated hour which is almost impossible up there as for that in a tv the intelligence meeting was an interesting and dramatic one because here was senator thompson with a couple of allies but remember that some republican members the committee were working at the

behest of mitch mcconnell more people interested in helping him the democrats immediately aisle working with the white house had jumped on a statement there's no purposes the partisans davis thoughts are high stakes of this meeting when it turns out that the hands of the intelligence agencies i'll have work for two different high principles they worked for the administration our and they're also accountable to the republican congress and i think the most dramatic and somewhat sad example this was louis freeh the director of the fbi so they have this meeting in thompson would say you know what do you think that i would let people out there you know and the democrats would say is there any real absolute profiles are and one of the center thompson republican colleague said to me afterwards there was very strange you could come out with any point of view that you want and that's what they gave democrats and one of their aides

and wee wee often the writing underestimates the role of the eggs but this was a blended live there who were spreading poison quite quite often said oh you know and there was a really got clobbered at this meeting it was so embarrassing many get others they say no they didn't say this he said that as far as one of the cia to vote democrat director fbi under the bundle under strong they're questioning from fred thompson those photons and family or an end of it and the had to move on the nsa a lot on both sides of the fence and doesn't get hurt then then then we get into the scandal to read that worster

live all claim remembering the revelations about who got into the white house as a result of what payments hal phone calls were made of the president vice president to people who ask for money and we get and again to the buddhist temple and at and how that happened and why it happened and you raise the question when you talk about it joe entry ian wall of corn they operated as they did without the knowledge of the president vice president you know really answer the question but you don't know which some cherries and i realize i review suggests very strongly virtually empty possible for too well informed political leaders with one

forms that's not to have known more than that now why would doe probably think that and i focused on the president that he's the one you have to look at and a smart man and you have to wonder also the first lady me johnny chung was reportedly hanging around mrs clinton's office that you i can hang around mrs clinton's author you just can't get him to do that kind of thing and then he helped her different across of a white house christmas party but a number of people nervously is strange comings and goings and repeated of these people you'd have when we got these tapes of some of the political fundraising events and when we heard of president clinton saying john vaughn john long has never not delivered on what he told me was going to do now did clinton never question where this money was

coming he probably actually the answer he never questioned it but there's a lot of reason to think he had been out one of the tapes showed him with an audience largely evasions is nothing that asians are just me said so many of you who've come from abroad workforces dinner and then there's this man ted chapin who spoke very little english a he'd been placed at the president side at the head table i just as he was placed at the vice president's idea that she she like temple of these people are not still but so i think it was hard it was things like i don't wanna know ah but they know that roger penrose was a witness who saw reflects what all quote people with a medical group chip yeah i gave money i was looking for access our very funny scenes you memorize the big short great god yeah it was a great character and he

is that can the person that that accounts for this is the center of the television game and then he and bp cannot be a good game but as for sasse concerned that the fight the murders of a typical situation what was going on there throughout the whole thing that basement to think a lot was made a major global fight punchline in both the type of our i guess you've given three hundred thousand and nine you are really bearing in on saying you know would you really do that and to know like a fit on the plaza the result but certainly you have a major scandal and good old fashioned scandal although unprecedented in many ways i thought oh you've alluded to certain

aspects of that one on the presidential race the white house the chinese situation and all that on the other hand you have a broader question having to do basically with the role of money in politics the democrat in order one part of it was altogether and then both of them one sentence and we're not one and that now is their sort of so they are and then vice versa and that that was the that was inherent problem we needed to the proper thing to do is conduct an aggressive investigation and subsequent prosecution for those who violated the law the existing law forget about changing laws the existing clear law it's been on the books for many many years the justice department and to this day over what extent that was deliberate or incompetent but

a painful chapter in american history the justice department but that but then having dealt with that look at the broader significance of i mean do we really want a system whereby you're not a player shoot contribute a hundred or two hundred or three hundred thousand dollars or where there is absolutely no limit whatsoever where the more money we have in politics if your people vote what's the logical conclusion from all that i mean it was all there together and no on hardly anyone had any interest in looking at it in its totality but that was pretty much it this book and what we all know that exactly what she got she points out one and the democrats wanted to say look it up on forever and republicans are saying we don't want to reform we're not the reformers says as mccain feingold suggested

and as the bill that with cherries we'll help you the vote would fit well fred was getting at the central problem in our political system there are others in what we had coming together hear his story was a metaphor for what had happened to our politics over twenty five years the deepening parties partisanship which i going to and there are historical reasons that happened frankly present company excepted the lower quality of politicians going into the system which i explain what that is and how that happens and i really felt though that and still feel that unless we can clean up the money orders and i think he's right is this affecting the public now so far they haven't been able to do it but i think that there is more movement in

that direction to your last chapter indicates that your local theater well i should i said that there are grounds for having some hope and i give people things specific things they can do i think people don't realize that they can have an impact on the system that it's not just all closed up are by the money interests as much as we emphasize that that baby they go home and they have their town meetings and the comeback to watch and talk about you know three people raised this man at the town meeting they're all kinds of ways to purchase a plate and try to have an impact and i think what i was trying to do is show that and that people really have to try or stop complaining