Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20161016 : c

every four years, the presidential candidates turn from politics to humor at the l al smith memorial dinner. >> i have travel3ed the circuit for many years. i never understood how the absence of one individual could cause three of us to not have seen. >> you have said many times in this campaign, you want to give america back to the little guy. i am thatresident, man. it is in the honor to share this. your great-grandfather was my favorite kind of governor. the kind who ran for president and lost. >> you are right, a campaign can wire a lot of wardrobe changes. blue in the morning. coat forourt -- sport dinner. it is nice to wear what we wear around the house. >> watch the dinner with hillary clinton and donald trump. listen at 9:00 p.m. eastern with the radio app. now republican candidate donald trump speaks at a campaign rally in new hampshire. this is just under one hour to rea. mr. trump: thank you. wow. wow. great crowd. they said just before i came on, this is the biggest crowd they have ever had hereby a factor of three. 7000 people. that is a big crowd. thank you all very much. we are having a good time. we will win this great state. 24 days left 24 days. 24 days. this is some crowd. show the crowd. please. show the crowd. we will deliver real change that puts america first. we will negotiate and renegotiate and do tremendous deals. we will make new trade deals. we will reduce surging crime. crime is at a level that it has not been at for a long time. the number of orders in our country is the highest it has been in 45 years. they do not tell you that. we will end and immigration. we will cut taxes and regulations. we will lift restrictions on education. we will reduce the cost of college, make childcare more affordable, and repeal and replace the disaster commonly known as obama care. your jobs will come back. your incomes will go up under a trump administration. your taxes will go away, way down under a trump administration. crooked hillary will lift your taxes substantially. let me tell you. right now, there are companies out there that some of you work for that are negotiating to leave our country and go to mexico. you do not know it, but you will be hearing get. if i become president then i am moving. we are going to be a rich country again. we will end government corruption. hillary clinton is the most corrupt person ever to seek office. you know this. she is the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the presidency. the media, the donors and special interests who support her will do everything they can to cling to their power at your expense. you know it, i know it, they know it. hillary clinton's documents released by wikileaks make more clear than ever, and they don't cover them the way they are supposed to cover them. that is bad, bad stuff. just how much is at stake in this election? the documents show negotiating with the justice department over the server that puts your country at danger. they show the clinton campaign viciously attacking catholics and evangelicals they show how the media collaborates and conspires directly with the clinton campaign. by the way, they show how the clinton campaign gets questions for the debate and the answers for the debate prior to the debate. we still beat her easily in that debate. can you believe that? she got the questions and answers prior to, i guess, the bernie debate. you don't even hear about it. can you imagine if i got the questions in the debate? it would be the biggest story worldwide. you do not even hear about it. she got the questions before the debate to cover up her crimes. hillary clinton deleted 33,000 e-mails after. remember, not before. that would have an bad. after a congressional subpoena. so, she gets the subpoena. we have problems, get rid of the e-mails, delete them. she lied to congress under oath. she made some iphones disappear with a hammer. anyone get rid of their phone with a hammer? three or four people, i want to talk to them. two boxes of e-mails -- gone. hillary clinton should have an been prosecuted. she should we in jail, she should be. >> lock her up! lock her up! lock her up! mr. trump: the fbi and the department of justice created a fraud in allowing hillary clinton to get away with her crimes. i guarantee you that the clintons are laughing like hell at them right now. the director's performance in congress, coupled with bill clinton's meeting on the tarmack with the attorney general in her airplane just prior to decision time on hillary clinton's future supposedly talking about golf and grandchildren for 39 minutes. remember, he just happened to be there. i love arizona, one of my favorite places. at that particular time of the year, it was like 110 degrees out. they just happen to be, look, i will give my regards to the attorney general. there has never been a situation like this in the history of our country. fbi people, who are phenomenal people, must be spinning at what is going on with the fbi. spinning. instead of being held accountable, hillary is running for president at what looks like a rigged election. the election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president. and, you know what i mean? in fact, today, the cousin of one of these people -- in fact, the cousin of one of these people wrote a letter that what she said is a lie, that she was a huge fan of donald trump, she invited donald trump to a restaurant to have dinner, which, by the way, i did not go to, i did not know who the heck we were talking about here. these allegations have been, many of them, proven false. the butler said it was a total lie. we cannot let them get away with this, folks. total lies. we are going to stop it. we are not going to back down. no witnesses whatsoever. how about this crazy woman on the airplane. can anyone believe that one? after 15 minutes she said, that was too much. in this place, it would be 1 second, and smack. it is a crazy world we are living in. it is a rigged election. they are putting that on the first pages of newspapers. we are not going to let it happen. americans have had it with the years and decades of corruption. you can go back to whitewater, to the cattle deal, where she got a far greater return on the investment in the history of the cattle business. give me a break. these are crooked people. right now, she is resting for the debate. she is resting for the debate. she calls it debate prep. this is saturday. that will be wednesday. you're supposed to know this stuff. what are you going to learn in five days? you know what is interesting to me, she is supposed to know it, yet, when she was being investigated by the fbi, what she did on the fourth of july weekend, by the way, with no tape recorders going, she did not have to swear. this was a little different than they treated martha stewart. no tape recorders going. 39 times, i don't remember, i don't remember. maybe that is why she has to debate prep because she has a bad memory. a lot of things are going on, folks. i think she is action getting pumped up. you understand? we will be talking about that in a few minutes. she is getting pumped up for wednesday night. you know, i don't know. we're like athletes, right? i beat 17 senators, governors all these people. we are like athletes. hillary beat bernie, though it looks like when he got a bit of a bad deal, if you look at wikileaks. athletes, they make them take a drug test. i think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. why don't we do that? we should take a drug test prior. i don't know what is going on with her. at the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning. at the end, it was like, take me down, she could barely reach her car. anyway, i am willing to do it. these people get rich stealing your jobs and shipping them to other countries all over the world. in particular, in your case, to mexico. i have so many friends in new england, so many great friends in new england, including tom brady and coach belichick. how good is tom? how good is tom? he said, well, maybe three hundred touchdowns. what a good coach. a great group of people. this will finally be the year when the american people say enough is enough. enough is enough. speaking in a secret meeting to a foreign bank, hillary clinton said her dream is to totally open trade and borders. that means the end of your jobs. by open trade she means foreign countries can cheat us out of millions and millions of jobs and trillions of dollars. that is what she means. it also means the end of the jobs that were taken by the disaster known as nafta. by open borders she means totally unlimited immigration. when she thought no one was listening, hillary clinton was plotting to the sovereignty of the united states. either we win this election or we lose this country. i really believe this is the last chance we have to win. i really believe it. not going to happen again. a trump administration will secure and defend our borders. yes, we will build the wall. [applause] >> build the wall! build the wall! mr. trump: a wall will not only keep out dangerous cartels and criminals, but it will keep out the drugs and heroin that is poisoning our youth. by the way, mexico, maybe they don't know it yet, mexico will pay for the wall 100%. they could be helping us much more with this problem if we had leadership in this country that said, folks, you better help. they are killing us. they will pay for the wall in some form. believe me, there are about 12 forms they can do it. they will pick the one that looks the best. they will pay for it. remember, don't forget, you were the ones. i won new hampshire, my first victory. when i won the primary, i promised the people of new hampshire that i would stop drugs from pouring into your community. you remember that? i said, i'm going to do it. with them, it is just talk and talk. they have a lot of people that make money on the drug business. i will have over $100 million spent on my campaign. plus, we have a lot of money coming in from small donors. i asked her the other night, why didn't you put something into your campaign? she doesn't want to do it. too greedy. i've now doubling down on my promise to the people of new hampshire. i can guarantee you, we will help all of those people. we will get them assistance and make sure that they are better. i tell you what, i love new hampshire. it had big impact on me. i think this is one of the most beautiful places. when i got to know the people -- i met with the groups and small groups -- i said, what is the biggest problem? they said, drugs. i said, drugs. drugs. it doesn't work. it made an impression. i went from group to group, what is the biggest problem? heroin, heroin. you have unbelievable police here. law enforcement groups. they are meeting me all over the place. you have unbelievable law enforcement. it is a pretty dramatic campaign. he dishonored his pledge. i would have honored it, no matter who won. they dishonored their pledge, not good. i got to know the community very well. i will tell you, will they ever forget? it was a rough campaign. some of these guys, some governors lost more viciously and in a more brutal contest than they ever have before. i was a businessman with no experience. when i was four months into the campaign, they did a study. they said, trump had four months of experience. they had over 230 years. charles krauthamer said, donald trump has no experience and no chance. remember when, in massachusetts, i got almost 50% of the vote? 49.7%. we had like 11 people left. they said, he did not get 50%. these are total losers. by the way, my people tell me we are up a lot in new hampshire. who knows? who knows? i think we are going to win new hampshire big. it made a big impact on me. i got to know the people of new hampshire so well. they do not talk about all the other problems we had. they said it was heroin pouring into the community. i said to them, if i win, i get elected president, i'm going to solve that problem. i mean it's so much, maybe more than ever. you are the ones who really showed me the gravity of the problem, of drugs, pouring in, mostly from the southern border into our community. we will take care of it. new hampshire is one of the highest drug overdose rates, if you look at it, and death rates in the country. it is hard to believe. we have to solve this crisis. we will. i have to give credit to my running mate, mike pence. has he been great? great guy. the mandatory minimum for those struggling with addiction. he has done such a good job in indiana. he has been such a loyal friend to me. i appreciate it. his wife karen. great. that was a good choice. leadership is about who you pick. by the way, did he not the hell out of tim kaine? [applause] mr. trump: that was like the new england patriots playing my high school football team. we must make similar efforts a priority for our nation. not too long ago, we read about courtney griffin. a beautiful couple. who died of an overdose within one year of each other. their story of prescription drugs, heroin, and missed opportunities in the court system is why we need to plan to end the opioid epidemic. we have such an epidemic in this country. people do not know it. the people who do know it, sometimes it is too late. we have to and this epidemic. we will stop the flow of illegal drugs into our country. the number of heroin seizures on the board has tripled. it has to go much, much higher. i have received the first ever endorsement of our border patrol agents. just last week, our ice officers. these are great people, by the way, people who want to do the job and are not allowed to do their jobs. under a trump administration, we will work with them to end the flow of drugs across our border. i asked them, how important is a wall? they said, so important, you have no idea. that made me feel good. we will also put an end to sanctuary cities, which refused to turn over illegal immigrants and refused to turn over drug traffickers for deportation. we will dismantle -- you know we have to do this -- dismantled the illegal immigrant cartels and violent gangs. we will send them swiftly out of our country back to their countries, and they are not coming back in. if you remember, hillary clinton, when we brought killers, drug dealers, gang members back, and intelligently, the country said, we are not taking them, we don't want them. she said, bring them back. that is not going to happen with trump, believe me. there will not be one case where those people are brought to their country and brought back to our country. not one case. we will prosecute traffickers of illegal drugs and provide law enforcement and prosecutors with resources and support they need to properly do their jobs. president obama, who spends most of his time campaigning for crooked hillary -- this guy spends all his time campaigning. he ought to be working on jobs and lowering taxes. president obama excommunicated the sentences of high-level drug traffickers. can you believe this? many of them with extensive criminal history and records. i mean, the whole thing, honestly, the whole thing is unbelievable. she is not winning because everything she touches is terrible. in new hampshire, why am i not up through the roof? hillary clinton, when you look at her, let look at her, everything she touches turns bad. her foreign policies are a disaster. her views on the border are a disaster. she wants to everyone flowing to the country. she wants syrian refugees pouring into our country. we have no idea who they are or where they come from. she promises to expand this approach, turning our streets back over to gangs, drug cartels, an armed career criminal's that we won't be able to get out of the country. i want everything to be law, justice, order, and everything perfect, but folks, we got to take our country back. we got to take our country back. over the last few years, this administration has been steadily dismantling the federal, criminal justice system, especially with respect to her. it's been totally dismantled. i will tell you what, there has never been a lower day in the history of the fbi of the justice department in this period of time. tens of thousands of drug dealers have been released from prison, and they have been released early, including many illegal immigrants regardless of their history of violence or ties to transnational gangs or cartels. they are released early all the time. they get off for good behavior and within an hour they are back doing their same thing. we will close the shipping loopholes sending dangerous drugs across our borders and into the hands of our postal service. the traffickers use the postal service to mail drugs to users and dealers all over the united states. it comes right through the mail. that won't be happening. the truck administration will crackdown on this abuse and give law enforcement the tools they need to accomplish this mission and rapidly. rapidly. [applause] third -- we will fix the misguided rules and regulations that have made this problem worse. it is a tragedy enough that so many americans are struggling with life-threatening addiction. we are going to work with them. the biggest problem. we should not compound that tragedy with government policies and bureaucratic rules that make it even harder for them to get the help that they so desperately need. the fda has been far too slow to approve abuse-deterring drugs. they have drugs that can really help, and it doesn't happen. four years and years they study. these are people who are dying committing suicide. we have to move it along and there are things that are amazing that they have and they are not approving them. when the fda has approved these medications, the rules have been far too restrictive, severely limiting the number of authorized subscribers and patience doctors can treat. we had millions and millions of people and our country who are badly addicted and will die soon. we have to move it along. recovery medications have the potential to save thousands and thousands of lives. we prescribe opioids like oxycontin. we do that freely, but when patients become addicted to those drugs, we stop doctors from getting patients to treatments they medically need to get better. it will help. it will help. and many of these people are going to be dying. what is taking so long? years and years. as president, i will work to lift the cap on the number of patients they treat. they have a cap. at the same time, dea to reduce the amount of scheduled 2 opioids, drugs like oxycontin, methadone, and fentanyl. we have 5% of the world's population, but use 80% of prescription opioids. that's an amazing statistic. finally, we will give people struggling with addiction access to the help they need. congress has are retaken the first step by passing -- congress has already taken the first of bypassing the recovery act. this legislation is an important step in the right direction. i will expand incentives for states to use drug courts. your police have done an amazing job. they are against a fight that is unbelievable. your police have done an amazing job. [applause] they can be cost effective, appropriate, and humane, and the response to the addiction can be incredible. i would dramatically expand access to treatments, and and medicaid policies that obstruct inpatient treatment. we got to do this. i would dramatically first responders' access to narcan. it is an antidote that save thousands of lives and is supposedly amazing. there are amazing things out there, but we are not getting -- that we are not able to use them. too many of our brave veterans have been prescribed these dangerous and prescription drugs. the v.a. has been such a disaster all of the country and we are going to take care of our veterans better than they had been taken care of before. remember that. [applause] our veterans, in many cases, are not treated as well. remember this -- they are not treated as well as illegal immigrants who come pouring into the country. our veterans are going to be taken care of really well for the first time. these are our great people. [applause] together, these steps will ensure that every american struggling with addiction has access to the care and the help he or she needs. in most cases, and in some cases, desperately needs. if we are going to bring hope back into our communities, we only have to solve lots of problems, but we also have to solve the problems of the economic crisis that we have because we have an economic crisis. jobs are gone. our companies, a lot of them have left. a lot of our best companies have left. leaving behind dilapidated communities, rusted out factory, and shattered dreams. we drive around here and you see buildings that were thriving 20 years ago, and now those companies are located in mexico and other places. not going to happen, folks. [applause] at the center of our economic revival, the will be fixing our terrible trade deals. just terrible. you look at nafta, you look at what's happened. speaking of that, 47 million americans are living in poverty. 45 million americans are on food stamps. think of that, in this country. we have nearly an $80 billion trade deficit in goods in the world since the great depression. it is not a recovery. it is only a recovery and wall street because it is a big fat bubble that will explode as soon as interest rates go up. and obama does not want to raising interest rates because he does not want to go down the way he should go down. it is a big fat, ugly bubble. you watch. it is horrible. it is horrible that he has been able to get away with this. and he has doubled the debt over his short tenure. over eight years, he would have doubled the debt to $20 trillion. from 10 train dollars to -- from $10 trillion to $20 trillion. we have not even started yet. our airports are a laughingstock all over the world. this is the legacy of obama-clinton. sustainable -- the state of new hampshire has lost manufacturing jobs since nafta. since china into the world trade organization, another bill hillary backed, and this is a bill clinton deal also come and listen to this because i thought this was a mistake. 70,000 factories have shut down, or left the head of states. 70,000. millions of jobs. i went back to my people and said, you made a typo. it couldn't be 70,000 factories. sadly, it was not a typo. that is 15 factories at a closing on average. 15 a day. but 15 factories. we are living through the greatest jobs' theft in the history of the world. never in the history of the world has there been a theft of jobs like what other countries have done to the united states. your area here, just about the top-of-the-line, you understand that. there she goes, she says, no getting. they know, you know. tokyo, feed chrysler, mattel, hundreds and hundreds are moving their jobs to mexico. i am telling you right now, companies are negotiating from this area to move to mexico. not pretty. won't happen -- if i am elected, it is not going to happen because they will know that if they go to mexico and they built their product in mexico in one to sell it into the united states, and they are going to fire all of these people whether it is new hampshire or anywhere else, they are going to pay a 35% tax on that product coming back in and they are not going to move. no chance of them moving. [applause] you know what? i have been watching for 10 years federal government, they given zero interest loans and give them all sorts of things. when you tell them there are consequences to pay when you fire people from this area, or any area in the united states, and you think you are going to move somewhere and make product and sell it to us? no. we are not going to be the stupid people anymore. i visited the sylvania plant. does anybody make a television set in the united states? we don't make anything anymore. i buy thousands of television sets again. everything is south korea, right? you have all south korea. lg, everything. can we find somebody in the united states? you see than insulting a have not seen that name and a long time because they moved. your jobs are done. they are gone. if i win, day one, we will announce our plans to totally renegotiate nafta. [applause] if we don't get the deal b-1s, we will leave nafta and start over again and we will make much better trade deals. we are going to have good trade deals. we are going to have trade deals with jobs coming into our country. we will have two main highways, not one. right now, our trade deal, nafta -- by the way, the worst trade deal ever made in the world. if you look at the tax systems, they are different. immediately -- when the deal was made, they made a mistake and nobody ever fixed the mistake. they started off with a 16 percent advantage. they made a mistake. it is a defective deal. how often do you see deals going the other way? they are all going to mexico. it is better than hiring a consultant. a friend of mine, i set out his business -- i said how is business? where are you building? he said mexico. he is from united states. i said, how was mexico doing? he said, donald, it is the eighth wonder of the world and we are building some of the greatest plants in mexico. you have to see. i said, i don't want to see. so many companies are moving now. how about the united states? he said, not good, not good. how stupid are we? how stupid are our leaders? it is campaign contributions, pacts, all of this stuff. even if they know better, and they are not all stupid, a lot of them are, but they won't do it because they have to care of their donors for special interests. i tell you this very strongly, to me, one of the most important statements, we are going to start making things again in america. [applause] you are going to see the day during my term that apple opens up in this country and apple and other companies like apple make their product in this country. forget about china, forget about -- [chanting "usa"] remember this, with me, it is america first. america first. we are going to have good relationships with mexico. i met with the president of mexico two months ago. i am sure you read about it. he is a nice guy. he is a very nice guy. we are going to have a great relationship with mexico, but we have to explain to mexico, it is a two-way street, not a one-way street. it has got to come both ways. we get the drugs, the unemployment. they get the cash, the companies, and the jobs. i would say that is not a good deal, don't you think? what we are going to be america first and we are going to see apple another companies like apple opening plants in this country. believe me, it is going to happen. it is going to happen as sure as you are standing there, that is going to happen. as part of the plan to bring back jobs, we are going to lower our business tax from 35% to two 15%. -- to 15%. bringing trillions and trillions of dollars in wealth back into our country. you have many companies leaving our country to get their money. the taxes are so high and bureaucracy is even worse. manufacturers will be able to expense the cost of new investment and equipment to help make our country much more competitive because we are not even competitive now. we are the highest tax major country in any where in the world by far. we are going to be one of the lower tax. i would like to say the lowest, but we won't be, but will be one of the lower tax in the world. we will lower taxes massively. hillary is looking to raise your taxes massively, massively. we will become the great jobs magnet of the world. wages will rise. jobs will return. the factory set i told her about will come rushing back onto our shores. [applause] just to finish up, here are some of the amazing things we are going to do for our country starting in 2017. and remember, it only works november 8, you got to get out, you got to vote. you got to vote. [applause] i jokingly say if you go to your doctor and you get a prognosis, that is the ultimate. he says it is over. you have a month to live. does not make any difference. on november 8, you get out of bed, you get out -- think of your children, think of your grandchildren. you got to get out and vote. [applause] you got to get out. we are going to have the biggest tax cut since ronald reagan. actually, it can even be bigger than that. very importantly, we are going to eliminate every unnecessary regulation that are choking people in choking our country. we are going to defend our religious liberty. [applause] we are going to reduce the cost of college tuition. [applause] we are going to rebuild for our great, great people and the military, we are going to rebuild our depleted military, and we are going to take care of our veterans. [applause] we are going to repeal and replace obamacare. [applause] very important for new hampshire, this is under siege. we are going to save our second amendment. [applause] and the national rifle association endorsed me, they are terrific people. we are going to appoint justices to the united states supreme court who well uphold and defend the constitution of the united states. [applause] you have 24 days to make every dream you ever dreamed for your family, for your country. 24 days. if we don't win, as i said before, i don't think it is ever going to happen again. our country is going to be in a spiral that won't be stopped. on november 8, the arrogance of washington d.c. will come face-to-face with the righteous verdict of the american voter. [applause] i am going to fight so hard hey, i had a great life. this incredible company. my life is so wonderful. i am loving this because we are doing this that is going to be so amazing, but we have to pull it off. it is a movement to the likes of which they have never seen before. look at this crowd all the way back. the likes of which they have never seen before. [applause] i am going to fight for every citizen of every background from every stretch of this nation, and i am going to fight to bring us all together as americans. [applause] imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people under one god, saluting one american flag! [applause] 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, you are going to look back at this rally for the rest of your life. you are going to remember this day. this is a movement like people have never seen in this country before. we are going to make history together. remember, it is a rigged system, a rigged election. we are going to be the rate system -- we're going to beat the rate system -- and they're going to be the rigged election. you are going to look back and say this is the most important vote i have ever cast for anyone at anytime in my life. once again, we are going to have a government of, by, and for the people. [applause] we will make america wealthy again. we will make america strong again. we will make america safe again. and we will make america great again. thank you, everybody. bless you. thank you. thank you. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >> on newsmakers, jessica o'connell, executive director of emily's list, talks about pro-choice candidates, newsmakers on c-span. >> i don't write a column that comes on the left or the right, and i think i'm the only one that does a political column that doesn't have an ideological slant. >> sunday night on q&a, marine dow discusses her book the euro living dangerous -- the year of living -- of voting dangerously. in trouble, and donald trump does is to come up when they get in trouble, they try to blame someone else. when bill got in trouble with monica, the white house aides would come around and say well thomas jefferson. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. next, a look at past presidential debates. we begin with the final 1984 debate between president ronald reagan and former vice president walter mondale. then, the second 1988 debate between vice president george h.w. bush and massachusetts governor michael dukakis. final 2008 the debate between senator barack obama of illinois and arizona senator john mccain. >> in october 1984, the final debate was held between incumbent president ronald reagan and former vice president walter mondale. it was held at municipal auditorium in kansas city. this is an hour and a half. [applause] ms. ridings: good evening from the municipal auditorium in kansas city. i am dorothy ridings, the president of the league of women voters, the sponsor of this final presidential debate of the 1984 campaign between republican ronald reagan and democrat walter mondale. our panelists for tonight's debate on defense and foreign policy issues are georgie anne geyer, syndicated columnist for universal press syndicate, marvin kalb, chief diplomatic correspondent for nbc news, morton kondracke, executive editor of the new republic magazine, and henry trewhitt, diplomatic correspondent for the baltimore sun. magazine, and henry trewhitt, diplomatic correspondent for the baltimore sun. edwin newman, formerly of nbc news and now a syndicated columnist for king features, is our moderator. ed. mr. newman: dorothy ridings, thank you. a brief word about our procedure tonight. the first question will go to mr. mondale. he'll have 2.5 minutes to reply. then the panel member who put the question will ask a followup. the answer to that will be limited to one minute. after that, the same question will be put to president reagan. again, there will be a followup. and then each man will have one minute for rebuttal. the second question will go to president reagan first. after that, the alternating will continue. at the end there will be four-minute summations, with president reagan going last. we have asked the questioners to be brief. let's begin. ms. geyer, your question to mr. mondale. ms. geyer: mr. mondale, two related questions on the crucial issue of central america. you and the democratic party have said that the only policy toward the horrendous civil wars in central america should be on the economic development and negotiations, with perhaps a quarantine of marxist nicaragua. do you believe that these answers would in any way solve the bitter conflicts there? do you really believe that there is no need to resort to force at all? are not the solutions to central america's gnawing problems simply, again, too weak and too late? mr. mondale: i believe that the question oversimplifies the difficulties of what we must do in central america. our objectives ought to be to strengthen the democracies, to stop communist and other extremist influences, and stabilize the community in that area. to do that we need a three-pronged attack. one is military assistance to our friends who are being pressured. secondly, a strong and sophisticated economic aid program and human rights program that offers a better life and a sharper alternative to the alternative offered by the totalitarians who oppose us; and finally, a strong diplomatic effort that pursues the possibilities of peace in the area. that's one of the big disagreements that we have with the president -- that they have not pursued the diplomatic opportunities either within el salvador or as between the countries and have lost time during which we might have been able to achieve a peace this brings up the whole question of what presidential leadership is all about. i think the lesson in central america, this recent embarrassment in nicaragua where we are giving instructions for hired assassins, hiring criminals, and the rest -- all of this has strengthened our opponents. a president must not only assure that we're tough, but we must also be wise and smart in the exercise of that power. we saw the same thing in lebanon, where we spent a good deal of america's assets. but because the leadership of this government did not pursue wise policies, we have been humiliated, and our opponents are stronger. the bottom line of national strength is that the president must be in command, he must lead. and when a president doesn't know that submarine missiles are recallable, says that 70% our strategic forces are conventional, discovers three years into his administration that our arms control efforts have failed because he didn't know that most soviet missiles were on land -- these are things a president must know to command. a president is called the commander in chief. and he's called that because he's supposed to be in charge of the facts and run our government and strengthen our nation. ms. geyer: mr. mondale, if i could broaden the question just a little bit. since world war ii, every conflict that we as americans have been involved with has been in non-conventional or irregular terms. and yet, we keep fighting in conventional or traditional military terms. the central american wars are very much in the same pattern as china, as lebanon, as iran, as cuba, in their early days. do you see any possibility that we are going to realize the change in warfare in our time, or react to it in those terms? mr. mondale: we absolutely must, which is why i responded to your first question the way i did. it's much more complex. you must understand the region, you must understand the politics in the area, you must provide a strong alternative, and you must show strength -- and all at the same time. that's why i object to the covert action in nicaragua. that's a classic example of a strategy that's embarrassed us, strengthened our opposition, and undermined the moral authority of our people and our country in the region. strength requires knowledge, command. we've seen in the nicaraguan example a policy that has actually hurt us, strengthened our opposition, and undermined the moral authority of our country in that region. ms. geyer: mr. president, in the last few months it has seemed more and more that your policies in central america were beginning to work. yet, just at this moment, we are confronted with the extraordinary story of a cia guerrilla manual for the anti-sandinista contras whom we are backing, which advocates not only assassinations of sandinistas but the hiring of criminals to assassinate the guerrillas we are supporting in order to create martyrs. is this not, in effect, our own state-supported terrorism? pres. reagan: no, but i'm glad you asked that question, because i know it's on many peoples' minds. i have ordered an investigation. i know that the cia is already going forward with one. we have a gentleman down in nicaragua who is on contract to the cia, advising -- supposedly on military tactics -- the contras. and he drew up this manual. it was turned over to the agency head of the cia in nicaragua to be printed. and a number of pages were excised by that agency head there, the man in charge, and he sent it on up here to cia, where more pages were excised before it was printed. but some way or other, there were 12 of the original copies that got out down there and were not submitted for this printing process by the cia. now, those are the details as we have them. and as soon as we have an investigation and find out where any blame lies for the few that did not get excised or changed, we certainly are going to do something about that. we'll take the proper action at the proper time. i was very interested to hear about central america and our process down there, and i thought for a moment that instead of a debate i was going to find mr. mondale in complete agreement with what we're doing, because the plan that he has outlined is the one we've been following for quite some time, including diplomatic processes throughout central america and working closely with the contadora group. so, i can only tell you about the manual -- that we're not in the habit of assigning guilt before there has been proper evidence produced and proof of that guilt. but if guilt is established, whoever is guilty we will treat with that situation then, and they will be removed. ms. geyer: well, mr. president, you are implying then that the cia in nicaragua is directing the contras there. i'd also like to ask whether having the cia investigate its own manual in such a sensitive area is not sort of like sending the fox into the chicken coop a second time? pres. reagan: i'm afraid i misspoke when i said a cia head in nicaragua. there's not someone there directing all of this activity. there are, as you know, cia men stationed in other countries in the world and, certainly, in central america. and so it was a man down there in that area that this was delivered to, and he recognized that what was in that manual was in direct contravention of my own executive order, in december of 1981, that we would have nothing to do with regard to political assassinations. mr. newman: mr. mondale, your rebuttal. mr. mondale: what is a president charged with doing when he takes his oath of office? he raises his right hand and takes an oath of office to take care to faithfully execute the laws of the land. a president can't know everything, but a president has to know those things that are essential to his leadership and the enforcement of our laws. this manual -- several thousands of which were produced -- was distributed, ordering political assassinations, hiring of criminals, and other forms of terrorism. some of it was excised, but the part dealing with political terrorism was continued. how can this happen? how can something this serious occur in an administration and have a president of the united states in a situation like this say he didn't know? a president must know these things. i don't know which is worse, not knowing or knowing and not stopping it. and what about the mining of the harbors in nicaragua which violated international law? this has hurt this country, and a president's supposed to command. mr. newman: mr. president, your rebuttal. pres. reagan: yes. i have so many things there to respond to, i'm going to pick out something you said earlier. you've been all over the country repeating something that, i will admit, the press has also been repeating -- that i believed that nuclear missiles could be fired and then called back. i never, ever conceived of such a thing. i never said any such thing. in a discussion of our strategic arms negotiations, i said that submarines carrying missiles and airplanes carrying missiles were more conventional-type weapons, not as destabilizing as the land-based missiles, and that they were also weapons that -- or carriers -- that if they were sent out and there was a change, you could call them back before they had launched their missiles. but i hope that from here on you will no longer be saying that particular thing, which is absolutely false. how anyone could think that any sane person would believe you could call back a nuclear missile, i think is as ridiculous as the whole concept has been. so, thank you for giving me a chance to straighten the record. i'm sure that you appreciate that. [laughter] mr. newman: mr. kalb, your question to president reagan. mr. kalb: mr. president, you have often described the soviet union as a powerful, evil empire intent on world domination. but this year you have said, and i quote, "if they want to keep their mickey mouse system, that's okay with me." which is which is it, mr. president? do you want to contain them within their present borders and perhaps try to reestablish detente -- or what goes for detente -- or do you really want to roll back their empire? pres. reagan: i have said on a number of occasions exactly what i believe about the soviet union. i retract nothing that i have said. i believe that many of the things they have done are evil in any concept of morality that we have. but i also recognize that as the two great superpowers in the world, we have to live with each other. and i told mr. gromyko we don't like their system. they don't like ours. and we're not going to change their system, and they sure better not try to change ours. but between us, we can either destroy the world or we can save it. and i suggested that, certainly, it was to their common interest, along with ours, to avoid a conflict and to attempt to save the world and remove the nuclear weapons. and i think that perhaps we established a little better understanding. i think that in dealing with the soviet union one has to be realistic. i know that mr. mondale, in the past, has made statements as if they were just people like ourselves, and if we were kind and good and did something nice, they would respond accordingly. and the result was unilateral disarmament. we canceled the b-1 under the previous administration. what did we get for it? nothing. the soviet union has been engaged in the biggest military buildup in the history of man at the same time that we tried the policy of unilateral disarmament, of weakness, if you will. and now we are putting up a defense of our own. and i've made it very plain to them, we seek no superiority. we simply are going to provide a deterrent so that it will be too costly for them if they are nursing any ideas of aggression against us. now, they claim they're not. and i made it plain to them, we're not. there's been no change in my attitude at all. i just thought when i came into office it was time that there was some realistic talk to and about the soviet union. and we did get their attention. mr. kalb: mr. president, perhaps the other side of the coin, a related question, sir. since world war ii, the vital interests of the united states have always been defined by treaty commitments and by presidential proclamations. aside from what is obvious, such as nato, for example, which countries, which regions in the world do you regard as vital national interests of this country, meaning that you would send american troops to fight there if they were in danger? pres. reagan: ah, well, now you've added a hypothetical there at the end, mr. kalb, about where we would send troops in to fight. i am not going to make the decision as to what the tactics could be, but obviously there are a number of areas in the world that are of importance to us. one is the middle east, and that is of interest to the whole western world and the industrialized nations, because of the great supply of energy upon which so many depend there. our neighbors here in america are vital to us. we're working right now in trying to be of help in southern africa with regard to the independence of namibia and the removal of the cuban surrogates, the thousands of them, from angola. so, i can say there are a great many interests. i believe that we have a great interest in the pacific basin. that is where i think the future of the world lies. but i am not going to pick out one and, in advance, hypothetically say, "oh, yes, we would send troops there." i don't want to send troops any place. mr. newman: i'm sorry, mr. president. sir, your time was up. pres. reagan: all right. mr. kalb: mr. mondale, you have described the soviet leaders as, and i'm quoting, "cynical, ruthless, and dangerous," suggesting an almost total lack of trust in them. in that case, what makes you think that the annual summit meetings with them that you have proposed will result in agreements that would satisfy the interests of this country? mr. mondale: because the only type of agreements to reach with the soviet union are the types that are specifically defined, so we know exactly what they must do, subject to full verification, which means we know every day whether they're whether they're living up to it, and followups, wherever we find suggestions that they're violating it, and the strongest possible terms. i have no illusions about the soviet union leadership or the nature of that state. they are a tough and a ruthless adversary, and we must be prepared to meet that challenge, and i would. where i part with the president is that despite all of those differences we must, as past presidents before this one have done, meet on the common ground of survival. and that's where the president has opposed practically every arms control agreement, by every president, of both political parties, since the bomb went off. and he now completes this term with no progress toward arms control at all, but with a very dangerous arms race underway instead. there are now over 2,000 more warheads pointed at us today than there were when he was sworn in, and that does not strengthen us. we must be very, very realistic in the nature of that leadership, but we must grind away and talk to find ways of reducing these differences, particularly where arms races are concerned and other dangerous exercises of soviet power. there will be no unilateral disarmament under my administration. i will keep this nation strong. i understand exactly what the soviets are up to, but that, too, is a part of national strength. to do that, a president must know what is essential to command and to leadership and to strength. and that's where the president's failure to master, in my opinion, the essential elements of arms control has cost us dearly. he's three years into this administration. he said he just discovered that most soviet missiles are on land, and that's why his proposal didn't work. i invite the american people tomorrow -- because i will issue the statement quoting president reagan -- he said exactly what i said he said. he said that these missiles were less dangerous than ballistic missiles because you could fire them, and you could recall them if you decided there'd been a miscalculation. mr. newman: i'm sorry, sir --- mr. mondale: a president must know those things. mr. kalb: a related question, mr. mondale, on eastern europe. do you accept the conventional diplomatic wisdom that eastern europe is a soviet sphere of influence? and if you do, what could a mondale administration realistically do to help the people of eastern europe achieve the human rights that were guaranteed to them as a result of the helsinki accords? mr. mondale: i think the essential strategy of the united states ought not accept any soviet control over eastern europe. we ought to deal with each of these countries separately. we ought to pursue strategies with each of them, economic and the rest, that help them pull away from their dependence upon the soviet union. where the soviet union has acted irresponsibly, as they have in many of those countries, especially, recently, in poland, i believe we ought to insist that western credits extended to the soviet union bear the market rate. make the soviets pay for their irresponsibility. that is a very important objective -- to make certain that we continue to look forward to progress toward greater independence by these nations and work with each of them separately. mr. newman: mr. president, your rebuttal. pres. reagan: yes. i'm not going to continue trying to respond to these repetitions of the falsehoods that have already been stated here. but with regard to whether mr. mondale would be strong, as he said he would be, i know that he has a commercial out where he's appearing on the deck of the nimitz and watching the f-14's take off. and that's an image of strength -- except that if he had had his way when the nimitz was being planned, he would have been deep in the water out there because there wouldn't have been any nimitz to stand on -- he was against it. [laughter] he was against the f-14 fighter, he was against the m-1 tank, he was against the b-1 bomber, he wanted to cut the salary of all of the military, he wanted to bring home half of the american forces in europe. and he has a record of weakness with regard to our national defense that is second to none. audience member: hear, hear! pres. reagan: indeed, he was on that side virtually throughout all his years in the senate. and he opposed even president carter, when toward the end of his term president carter wanted to increase the defense budget. mr. newman: mr. mondale, your rebuttal. mr. mondale: mr. president, i accept your commitment to peace, but i want you to accept my commitment to a strong national defense. [applause] i propose a budget -- i have proposed a budget which would increase our nation's strength, in real terms, by double that of the soviet union. i'll tell you where we disagree. it is true over 10 years ago i voted to delay production of the f-14, and i'll tell you why. the plane wasn't flying the way it was supposed to be. it was a waste of money. your definition of national strength is to throw money at the defense department. my definition of national strength is to make certain that a dollar spent buys us a dollar's worth of defense. there's a big difference between the two of us. a president must manage that budget. i will keep us strong, but you'll not do that unless you command that budget and make certain we get the strength that we need. you pay $500 for a $5 hammer, you're not buying strength. mr. newman: i would ask the audience not to applaud. all it does is take up time that we would like to devote to the debate. mr. kondracke, your question to mr. mondale. mr. kondracke: mr. mondale, in an address earlier this year you said that before this country resorts to military force, and i'm quoting, "american interests should be sharply defined, publicly supported, congressionally sanctioned, militarily feasible, internationally defensible, open to independent scrutiny, and alert to regional history." now, aren't you setting up such a gauntlet of tests here that adversaries could easily suspect that as president you would never use force to protect american interests? mr. mondale: no. as a matter of fact, i believe every one of those standards is essential to the exercise of power by this country. and we can see that in both lebanon and in central america. in lebanon, this president exercised american power, all right, but the management of it was such that our marines were killed, we had to leave in humiliation, the soviet union became stronger, terrorists became emboldened. and it was because they did not think through how power should be exercised, did not have the american public with them on a plan that worked, that we ended up the way we did. similarly, in central america: what we're doing in nicaragua with this covert war -- which the congress, including many republicans, have tried to stop -- is finally end up with a public definition of american power that hurts us, where we get associated with political assassins and the rest. we have to decline, for the first time in modern history, jurisdiction in the world court because they'll find us guilty of illegal actions. and our enemies are strengthened from all of this. we need to be strong, we need to be prepared to use that strength, but we must understand that we are a democracy. we are a government by the people, and when we move, it should be for very severe and extreme reasons that serve our national interests and end up with a stronger country behind us. it is only in that way that we can persevere. mr. kondracke: you've been quoted as saying that you might quarantine nicaragua. i'd like to know what that means. would you stop soviet ships, as president kennedy did in 1962? and wouldn't that be more dangerous than president reagan's covert war? mr. mondale: what i'm referring to there is the mutual self-defense provisions that exist in the inter-american treaty, the so-called rio pact, that permits the nations, our friends in that region, to combine to take steps -- diplomatic and otherwise -- to prevent nicaragua, when she acts irresponsibly in asserting power in other parts outside of her border, to take those steps, whatever they might be, to stop it. the nicaraguans must know that it is the policy of our government that that leadership must stay behind the boundaries of their nation, not interfere in other nations. and by working with all of the nations in the region -- unlike the policies of this administration and unlike the president said, they have not supported negotiations in that region -- we will be much stronger, because we'll have the moral authority that goes with those efforts. mr. kondracke: president reagan, you introduced u.s. forces into lebanon as neutral peacekeepers, but then you made them combatants on the side of the lebanese government. eventually you were forced to withdraw them under fire, and now syria, a soviet ally, is dominant in the country. doesn't lebanon represent a major failure on the part of your administration and raise serious questions about your capacity as a foreign policy strategist and as commander in chief? pres. reagan: no, morton, i don't agree to all of those things. first of all, when we and our allies -- the italians, the french, and the united kingdom -- went into lebanon, we went in there at the request of what was left of the lebanese government to be a stabilizing force while they tried to establish a government. but the first -- pardon me -- the first time we went in, we went in at their request because the war was going on right in beirut between israel and the plo terrorists. israel could not be blamed for that. those terrorists had been violating their northern border consistently, and israel chased them all the way to there. then we went in with the multinational force to help remove, and did remove, more than 13,000 of those terrorists from lebanon. we departed. and then the government of lebanon asked us back in as a stabilizing force while they established a government and sought to get the foreign forces all the way out of lebanon and that they could then take care of their own borders. and we were succeeding. we were there for the better part of a year. our position happened to be at the airport. oh, there were occasional snipings and sometimes some artillery fire, but we did not engage in conflict that was out of line with our mission. i will never send troops anywhere on a mission of that kind without telling them that if somebody shoots at them, they can darn well shoot back. and this is what we did. we never initiated any kind of action -- we defended ourselves there. but we were succeeding to the point that the lebanese government had been organized -- if you will remember, there were the meetings in geneva in which they began to meet with the hostile factional forces and try to put together some kind of a peace plan. we were succeeding, and that was why the terrorist acts began. there are forces there -- and that includes syria, in my mind -- who don't want us to succeed, who don't want that kind of a peace with a dominant lebanon, dominant over its own territory. and so, the terrorist acts began and led to the one great tragedy when they were killed in that suicide bombing of the building. then the multilateral force withdrew for only one reason -- we withdrew because we were no longer able to carry out the mission for which we had been sent in. but we went in in the interest of peace and to keep israel and syria from getting into the sixth war between them. and i have no apologies for our going on a peace mission. mr. kondracke: mr. president, four years ago you criticized president carter for ignoring ample warnings that our diplomats in iran might be taken hostage. haven't you done exactly the same thing in lebanon, not once, but three times, with 300 americans, not hostages, but dead? and you vowed swift retaliation against terrorists, but doesn't our lack of response suggest that you're just bluffing? pres. reagan: morton, no. i think there's a great difference between the government of iran threatening our diplomatic personnel, and there is a government that you can see and can put your hand on. in the terrorist situation, there are terrorist factions all over. in a recent 30-day period, 37 terrorist acts in 20 countries have been committed. the most recent has been the one in brighton. in dealing with terrorists, yes, we want to retaliate, but only if we can put our finger on the people responsible and not endanger the lives of innocent civilians there in the various communities and in the city of beirut where these terrorists are operating. i have just signed legislation to add to our ability to deal, along with our allies, with this terrorist problem. and it's going to take all the nations together, just as when we banded together we pretty much resolved the whole problem of skyjackings sometime ago. well, the red light went on. i could have gone on forever. mr. newman: mr. mondale, your rebuttal? mr. mondale: groucho marx said, "who do you believe? me, or your own eyes?" and what we have in lebanon is something that the american people have seen. the joint chiefs urged the president not to put our troops in that barracks because they were indefensible. they went to him 5 days before they were killed and said, "please, take them out of there." the secretary of state admitted that this morning. he did not do so. the report following the explosion of the barracks disclosed that we had not taken any of the steps that we should have taken. that was the second time. then the embassy was blown up a few weeks ago, and once again none of the steps that should have been taken were taken. and we were warned five days before that explosives were on their way, and they weren't taken. the terrorists have won each time. the president told the terrorists he was going to retaliate. he didn't. they called their bluff. and the bottom line is that the united states left in humiliation, and our enemies are stronger. mr. newman: mr. president, your rebuttal? pres. reagan: yes. first of all, mr. mondale should know that the president of the united states did not order the marines into that barracks. that was a command decision made by the commanders on the spot and based with what they thought was best for the men there. that is one. on the other things that you've just said about the terrorists, i'm tempted to ask you what you would do. these are unidentified people, and after the bomb goes off, they're blown to bits because they are suicidal individuals who think they're going to go to paradise if they perpetrate such an act and lose their life in doing it. we are going to, as i say, we're busy trying to find the centers where these operations stem from, and retaliation will be taken. but we're not going to simply kill some people to say, "oh, look, we got even." we want to know when we retaliate that we're retaliating with those who are responsible for the terrorist acts. and terrorist acts are such that our own united states capitol in washington has been bombed twice. mr. newman: mr. trewhitt, your question to president reagan? mr. trewhitt: mr. president, i want to raise an issue that i think has been lurking out there for two or three weeks and cast it specifically in national security terms. you already are the oldest president in history. and some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with mr. mondale. i recall yet that president kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the cuban missile crisis. is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances? pres. reagan: not at all, mr. trewhitt, and i want you to know that also i will not make age an issue of this campaign. i am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience. [laughter and applause] if i still have time, i might add, mr. trewhitt, i might add that it was seneca or it was cicero, i don't know which, that said, "if it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state." mr. trewhitt: mr. president, i'd like to head for the fence and try to catch that one before it goes over, but i'll go on to another question. you and mr. mondale have already disagreed about what you had to say about recalling submarine-launched missiles. there's another, a similar issue out there that relates to your -- it is said, at least, that you were unaware that the soviet retaliatory power was based on land-based missiles. first, is that correct? secondly, if it is correct, have you informed yourself in the meantime? and third, is it even necessary for the president to be so intimately involved in strategic details? pres. reagan: yes, this had to do with our disarmament talks. and the whole controversy about land missiles came up because we thought that the strategic nuclear weapons, the most destabilizing are the land-based. you put your thumb on a button and somebody blows up 20 minutes later. so, we thought that it would be simpler to negotiate first with those. and then we made it plain, a second phase, take up the submarine-launched or the airborne missiles. the soviet union, to our surprise -- and not just mine -- made it plain when we brought this up that they placed, they thought, a greater reliance on the land-based missiles and, therefore, they wanted to take up all three. and we agreed. we said, "all right, if that's what you want to do." but it was a surprise to us, because they outnumbered us 64 to 36 in submarines and 20 percent more bombers capable of carrying nuclear missiles than we had. so, why should we believe that they had placed that much more reliance on land-based? but even after we gave in and said, "all right, let's discuss it all," they walked away from the table. we didn't. mr. trewhitt: mr. mondale, i'm going to hang in there. should the president's age and stamina be an issue in the political campaign? mr. mondale: no. and i have not made it an issue, nor should it be. what's at issue here is the president's application of his authority to understand what a president must know to lead this nation, secure our defense, and make the decisions and the judgments that are necessary. a minute ago the president quoted cicero, i believe. i want to quote somebody a little closer to home, harry truman. he said, "the buck stops here." we just heard the president's answer for the problems at the barracks in lebanon, where 241 marines were killed. what happened? first, the joint chiefs of staff went to the president, said, "don't put those troops there." they did it. and then five days before the troops were killed, they went back to the president, through the secretary of defense, and said, "please, mr. president, take those troops out of there because we can't defend them." they didn't do it. and we know what happened. after that, once again, our embassy was exploded. this is the fourth time this has happened -- an identical attack, in the same region, despite warnings -- even public warnings -- from the terrorists. who's in charge? who's handling this matter? that's my main point. now, on arms control, we're completing four years. this is the first administration since the bomb went off that made no progress. we have an arms race underway instead. a president has to lead his government or it won't be done. different people with different views fight with each other. for 3.5 years, this administration avoided arms control, resisted tabling arms control proposals that had any hope of agreeing, rebuked their negotiator in 1981 when he came close to an agreement, at least in principle, on medium-range weapons. and we have this arms race underway. and a recent book that just came out by perhaps the nation's most respected author in this field, strobe talbott, called "deadly gambits," concludes that this president has failed to master the essential details needed to command and lead us, both in terms of security and terms of arms control. that's why they call the president the commander in chief. good intentions, i grant. but it takes more than that. you must be tough and smart. mr. trewhitt: this question of leadership keeps arising in different forms in this discussion already. and the president, mr. mondale, has called you whining and vacillating, among the more charitable phrases -- weak, i believe. it is a question of leadership. and he has made the point that you have not repudiated some of the semidiplomatic activity of the reverend jackson, particularly in central america. did you approve of his diplomatic activity? and are you prepared to repudiate him now? mr. mondale: i read his statement the other day. i don't admire fidel castro at all. and i've said that. che guevara was a contemptible figure in civilization's history. i know the cuban state as a police state, and all my life i've worked in a way that demonstrates that. but jesse jackson is an independent person. i don't control him. and let's talk about people we do control. in the last debate, the vice president of the united states said that i said the marines had died shamefully and died in shame in lebanon. i demanded an apology from vice president bush because i had, instead, honored these young men, grieved for their families, and think they were wonderful americans that honored us all. what does the president have to say about taking responsibility for a vice president who won't apologize for something like that? mr. mondale was referring to an mr. newman: mr. president, your rebuttal? pres. reagan: yes. i know it'll come as a surprise to mr. mondale, but i am in charge. and, as a matter of fact, we haven't avoided arms control talks with the soviet union. very early in my administration i proposed -- and i think something that had never been proposed by any previous administration -- i proposed a total elimination of intermediate-range missiles, where the soviets had better than a 10 -- and still have -- better than a 10-to-1 advantage over the allies in europe. when they protested that and suggested a smaller number, perhaps, i went along with that. the so-called negotiation that you said i walked out on was the so-called walk in the woods between one of our representatives and one of the soviet union, and it wasn't me that turned it down, the soviet union disavowed it. mr. newman: mr. mondale, your rebuttal? mr. mondale: there are two distinguished authors on arms control in this country -- there are many others, but two that i want to cite tonight. one is strobe talbott in his classic book, "deadly gambits." the other is john neuhaus, who's one of the most distinguished arms control specialists in our country. both said that this administration turned down the "walk in the woods" agreement first, and that would have been a perfect agreement from the standpoint of the united states in europe and our security. when mr. nitze, a good negotiator, returned, he was rebuked, and his boss was fired. this is the kind of leadership that we've had in this administration on the most deadly issue of our times. now we have a runaway arms race. all they've got to show for four years in u.s.-soviet relations is one meeting in the last weeks of an administration, and nothing before. they're tough negotiators, but all previous presidents have made progress. this one has not. mr. newman: ms. geyer, your question to mr. mondale. ms. geyer: mr. mondale, many analysts are now saying that actually our number one foreign policy problem today is one that remains almost totally unrecognized -- massive illegal immigration from economically collapsing countries. they are saying that it is the only real territorial threat to the american nation-state. you, yourself, said in the 1970's that we had a "hemorrhage on our borders." yet today you have backed off any immigration reform, such as the balanced and highly crafted simpson-mazzoli bill. why? what would you do instead today, if anything? mr. mondale: this is a very serious problem in our country, and it has to be dealt with. i object to that part of the simpson-mazzoli bill which i think is very unfair and would prove to be so. that is the part that requires employers to determine the citizenship of an employee before they're hired. i'm convinced that the result of this would be that people who are hispanic, people who have different languages or speak with an accent, would find it difficult to be employed. i think that's wrong. we've never had citizenship tests in our country before, and i don't think we should have a citizenship card today. that is counterproductive. i do support the other aspects of the simpson-mazzoli bill that strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen other ways of dealing with undocumented workers in this difficult area and dealing with the problem of settling people who have lived here for many, many years and do not have an established status. i have further strongly recommended that this administration do something it has not done, and that is to strengthen enforcement at the border, strengthen the officials in this government that deal with undocumented workers, and to do so in a way that's responsible and within the constitution of the united states. we need an answer to this problem, but it must be an american answer that is consistent with justice and due process. everyone in this room, practically, here tonight, is an immigrant. we came here loving this nation, serving it, and it has served all of our most bountiful dreams. and one of those dreams is justice. and we need a measure -- and i will support a measure -- that brings about those objectives but avoids that one aspect that i think is very serious. the second part is to maintain and improve relations with our friends to the south. we cannot solve this problem all on our own. and that's why the failure of this administration to deal in an effective and a good-faith way with mexico, with costa rica, with the other nations in trying to find a peaceful settlement to the dispute in central america has undermined our capacity to effectively deal diplomatically in this area as well. ms. geyer: sir, people as well-balanced and just as father theodore hesburgh at notre dame, who headed the select commission on immigration, have pointed out repeatedly that there will be no immigration reform without employer sanctions, because it would be an unbalanced bill, and there would be simply no way to enforce it. however, putting that aside for the moment, your critics have also said repeatedly that you have not gone along with the bill or with any immigration reform because of the hispanic groups -- or hispanic leadership groups -- who actually do not represent what the hispanic-americans want, because polls show that they overwhelmingly want some kind of immigration reform. can you say, or how can you justify your position on this? and how do you respond to the criticism that this is another, or that this is an example of your flip-flopping and giving in to special interest groups at the expense of the american nation? mr. mondale: i think you're right that the polls show that the majority of hispanics want that bill, so i'm not doing it for political reasons. i'm doing it because all my life i've fought for a system of justice in this country, a system in which every american has a chance to achieve the fullness in life without discrimination. this bill imposes upon employers the responsibility of determining whether somebody who applies for a job is an american or not. and just inevitably, they're going to be reluctant to hire hispanics or people with a different accent. if i were dealing with politics here, the polls show the american people want this. i am for reform in this area, for tough enforcement at the border, and for many other aspects of the simpson-mazzoli bill, but all my life i've fought for a fair nation. and despite the politics of it, i stand where i stand, and i think i'm right, and before this fight is over we're going to come up with a better bill, a more effective bill that does not undermine the liberties of our people. ms. geyer: mr. president, you, too, have said that our borders are out of control. yet this fall you allowed the simpson-mazzoli bill -- which would at least have minimally protected our borders and the rights of citizenship -- because of a relatively unimportant issue of reimbursement to the states for legalized aliens. given that, may i ask what priority can we expect you to give this forgotten national security element? how sincere are you in your efforts to control, in effect, the nation-state that is the united states? pres. reagan: georgie anne, we, believe me, supported the simpson-mazzoli bill strongly -- and the bill that came out of the senate. however, there were things added in in the house side that we felt made it less of a good bill. as a matter of fact, made it a bad bill. and in conference -- we stayed with them in conference all the way to where even senator simpson did not want the bill in the manner in which it would come out of the conference committee. there were a number of things in there that weakened that bill. i can't go into detail about them here. but it is true our borders are out of control. it is also true that this has been a situation on our borders back through a number of administrations. and i supported this bill. i believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and who have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally. with regard to the employer sanctions, we must have that not only to ensure that we can identify the illegal aliens, but also, while some keep protesting about what it would do to employers, there is another employer that we shouldn't be so concerned about, and these are employers down through the years who have encouraged the illegal entry into this country because they then hire these individuals and hire them at starvation wages and with none of the benefits that we think are normal and natural for workers in our country, and the individuals can't complain because of their illegal status. we don't think that those people should be allowed to continue operating free. and this was why the provisions that we had in with regard to sanctions, and so forth -- and i'm going to do everything i can, and all of us in the administration are, to join in again when congress is back at it to get an immigration bill that will give us, once again, control of our borders. and with regard to friendship below the border and with the countries down there, yes, no administration that i know has established the relationship that we have with our latin friends. but as long as they have an economy that leaves so many people in dire poverty and unemployment, they are going to seek that employment across our borders. and we work with those other countries. ms. geyer: mr. president, the experts also say that the situation today is terribly different quantitatively -- qualitatively different from what it has been in the past because of the gigantic population growth. for instance, mexico's population will go from about 60 million today to 120 million at the turn of the century. many of these people will be coming into the united states not as citizens, but as illegal workers. you have repeatedly said recently that you believe that armageddon, the destruction of the world, may be imminent in our times. do you ever feel that we are in for an armageddon or a situation, a time of anarchy, regarding the population explosion in the world? pres. reagan: no. as a matter of fact, the population explosion, if you look at the actual figures, has been vastly exaggerated -- over exaggerated. as a matter of fact, there are some pretty scientific and solid figures about how much space there still is in the world and how many more people we can have. it's almost like going back to the malthusian theory, when even then they were saying that everyone would starve with the limited population they had then. but the problem of population growth is one, here, with regard to our immigration. and we have been the safety valve, whether we wanted to or not, with the illegal entry here, in mexico, where their population is increasing and they don't have an economy that can absorb them and provide the jobs. and this is what we're trying to work out, not only to protect our own borders but to have some kind of fairness and recognition of that problem. mr. newman: mr. mondale, your rebuttal? mr. mondale: one of the biggest problems today is that the countries to our south are so desperately poor that these people who will almost lose their lives if they don't come north, come north despite all the risks. and if we're going to find a permanent, fundamental answer to this, it goes to american economic and trade policies that permit these nations to have a chance to get on their own two feet and to get prosperity, so that they can have jobs for themselves and their people. and that's why this enormous national debt, engineered by this administration, is harming these countries in fueling this immigration. these high interest rates -- real rates that have doubled under this administration -- have had the same effect on mexico and so on, and the cost of repaying those debts is so enormous that it results in massive unemployment, hardship, and heartache. and that drives our friends to the south up into our region, and we need to end those deficits as well. mr. newman: mr. president, your rebuttal. pres. reagan: well, my rebuttal is i've heard the national debt blamed for a lot of things, but not for illegal immigration across our border and it has nothing to do with it. but with regard to these high interest rates, too, at least give us the recognition of the fact that when you left office, mr. mondale, they were 21.5 -- the prime rate. it's now 12.25, and i predict it'll be coming down a little more shortly. so, we're trying to undo some of the things that your administration did. mr. kalb, your question to president reagan. mr. kalb: mr. president, i'd like to pick up this armageddon theme. you've been quoted as saying that you do believe, deep down, that we are heading for some kind of biblical armageddon. your pentagon and your secretary of defense have plans for the united states to fight and prevail in a nuclear war. do you feel that we are now heading perhaps, for some kind of nuclear armageddon? and do you feel that this country and the world could survive that kind of calamity? pres. reagan: mr. kalb, i think what has been hailed as something i'm supposedly, as president, discussing as principle is the recall of just some philosophical discussions with people who are interested in the same things, and that is the prophecies down through the years, the biblical prophecies of what would portend the coming of armageddon, and so forth, and the fact that a number of theologians for the last decade or more have believed that this was true, that the prophecies are coming together that portend that. but no one knows whether armageddon, those prophecies mean that armageddon is a thousand years away or day after tomorrow. so, i have never seriously warned and said we must plan according to armageddon. now, with regard to having to say whether we would try to survive in the event of a nuclear war, of course we would. but let me also point out that to several parliaments around the world, in europe and in asia, i have made a statement to each one of them, and i'll repeat it here -- a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. and that is why we are maintaining a deterrent and trying to achieve a deterrent capacity to where no one would believe that they could start such a war and escape with limited damage. but the deterrent -- and that's what it is for -- is also what led me to propose what is now being called the star wars concept, but propose that we research to see if there isn't a defensive weapon that could defend against incoming missiles. and if such a defense could be found, wouldn't it be far more humanitarian to say that now we can defend against a nuclear war by destroying missiles instead of slaughtering millions of people? mr. kalb: mr. president, when you made that proposal, the so-called star wars proposal, you said, if i'm not mistaken, that you would share this very super-sophisticated technology with the soviet union. after all of the distrust over the years, sir, that you have expressed towards the soviet union, do you really expect anyone to take seriously that offer that you would share the best of america's technology in this weapons area with our principal adversary? pres. reagan: why not? what if we did -- and i hope we can. we're still researching -- what if we come up with a weapon that renders those missiles obsolete? there has never been a weapon invented in the history of man that has not led to a defensive, a counterweapon. but suppose we came up with that? now, some people have said, "ah, that would make war imminent, because they would think that we could launch a first strike because we could defend against the enemy." but why not do what i have offered to do and asked the soviet union to do? say, "look, here's what we can do. we'll even give it to you. now, will you sit down with us and once and for all get rid, all of us, of these nuclear weapons and free mankind from that threat?" i think that would be the greatest use of a defensive weapon. mr. kalb: mr. mondale, you've been very sharply critical of the president's strategic defense initiative. and yet, what is wrong with a major effort by this country to try to use its best technology to knock out as many incoming nuclear warheads as possible? mr. mondale: first of all, let me sharply disagree with the president on sharing the most advanced, the most dangerous, the most important technology in america with the soviet union. we have had for many years, understandably, a system of restraints on high technology because the soviets are behind us. and any research or development along the star wars schemes would inevitably involve our most advanced computers, our most advanced engineering. and the thought that we would share this with the soviet union is, in my opinion, a total non-starter. i would not let the soviet union get their hands on it at all. now, what's wrong with star wars? there's nothing wrong with the theory of it. if we could develop a principle that would say both sides could fire all their missiles and no one would get hurt, i suppose it's a good idea. but the fact of it is we're so far away from research that even comes close to that, that the director of engineering research at the defense department said to get there we would have to solve eight problems, each of which are more difficult than the atomic bomb and the manhattan project. it would cost something like a trillion dollars to test and deploy weapons. the second thing is this all assumes that the soviets wouldn't respond in kind. and they always do. we don't get behind. they won't get behind. and that's been the tragic story of the arms race. we have more at stake in space satellites than they do. if we could stop, right now, the testing and the deployment of these space weapons -- and the president's proposals go clear beyond research -- if it was just research we wouldn't have any argument, because maybe someday, somebody will think of something -- but to commit this nation to a buildup of antisatellite and space weapons at this time, in their crude state, would bring about an arms race that's very dangerous indeed. one final point. the most dangerous aspect of this proposal is, for the first time, we would delegate to computers the decision as to whether to start a war. that's dead wrong. there wouldn't be time for a president to decide; it would be decided by these remote computers. it might be an oil fire, it might be a jet exhaust, the computer might decide it's a missile -- and off we go. why don't we stop this madness now and draw a line and keep the heavens free from war? [applause] mr. kalb: mr. mondale, in this general area, sir, of arms control, president carter's national security adviser, zbigniew brzezinski, said, "a nuclear freeze is a hoax." yet the basis of your arms proposals, as i understand them, is a mutual and verifiable freeze on existing weapons systems. in your view, which specific weapons systems could be subject to a mutual and verifiable freeze, and which could not? mr. mondale: every system that is verifiable should be placed on the table for negotiations for an agreement. i would not agree to any negotiations or any agreement that involved conduct on the part of the soviet union that we couldn't verify every day. i would not agree to any i would not agree to any agreement in which the united

Related Keywords

United States Capitol , District Of Columbia , United States , Tokyo , Japan , New Hampshire , Iran , Washington , China , Illinois , Indiana , Angola , Syria , Lebanon , Russia , Nicaragua , United Kingdom , Mexico , Beirut , Beyrouth , Namibia , Arizona , Sylvania , Israel , Costa Rica , Massachusetts , Geneva , Genè , Switzerland , El Salvador , Helsinki , Eteläuomen Läi , Finland , Brighton , Brighton And Hove , Cuba , Poland , South Korea , France , Italy , Americans , America , Soviets , French , Soviet , Italians , Lebanese , Syrian , Nicaraguan , Nicaraguans , American , Cuban , Georgie Anne Geyer , Tim Kaine , Notre Dame , Ronald Reagan , Michael Dukakis , Groucho Marx , Georgie Anne , Zbigniew Brzezinski , Walter Mondale , John Neuhaus , Tom Brady , Thomas Jefferson , Harry Truman , Barack Obama , Courtney Griffin , Martha Stewart , Edwin Newman , Smith Al , John Mccain , Hillary Clinton , Marvin Kalb ,