News; Domestic
COLMES: We're now joined by former advisor to President Clinton, the
author of "Power Plays," Dick Morris.
Before you talk about immigration, this idea of the Clinton TV show,
is that something that you -- it's not going to happen, right? DICK MORRIS, AUTHOR: Well, no. It may well. Not a morning show. Not
a daytime show. But I think that, if I were advising him, again, I
would tell him to go for a once-a-week, primetime public affairs show.
And I think he'd get great ratings.
COLMES: Meet the Bill.
MORRIS: Well, yes. It's pay the Bill. But I think that -- and I
think the money is real good. And this guy has become really obsessed
with money.
COLMES: So you think he wants to the that?
MORRIS: I think he would want to, and I think he would do a good job.
You know, the State of the Union speeches always got fabulous ratings.
And if he took a serious --
COLMES: It's on every channel. Of course it gets good ratings.
HANNITY: No, not every day.
In my book, "Power Plays," I talk about the importance of mystery in
leadership. Once a day, you can't have mystery. It's like running
around naked. But I do believe that once a week with a hour-long,
primetime, public affairs program, he could really shape the national
debate.
COLMES: You are right about the INS, that changing the name to
something else and doing the same thing isn't going to work.
115,000 people in the Mideast countries live in this United States
illegally, as you point out. 300,000 people deported are still in this
country.
MORRIS: And 6,000 new visas were issued to Middle Eastern people, 60
days after 09-11.
COLMES: The point is, enforce the laws we have. Take the laws on the
books -- you know, as you point out also, we had four shots at Mohamed
Atta. Had the laws been enforced, we could gotten him a number of times
prior to September 11th.
MORRIS: If there were 20 people running around the United States
illegally, I would say, yeah, enforce the laws we have.
But when you have 600,000 -- 300,000 people who are here that have
already been deported, ordered deported and they're still here, and
another 600,000 that are here illegally, at least, you know, from those
countries, it seems to me that you, at that point, have to say we do not
have the option of just enforcing the law.
What we have to do, it seems to me, is a year-long ban on the all
immigration for any reason at all from any nation that either sponsors
or harbors terrorism. Keep them out. And by the way, use traffic cops
as the backup defense to catch and deport people who are here illegally,
like they should have deported Mohamed Atta.
HANNITY: I totally agree with you. We discussed immigration before.
I want to move on to another topic with you. DNC. First they tried
the Enron memo. They tried to blame the recession on Bush and they're
in full bore -- the Democrats, you'll agree, politically are pretty
desperate in this midterm election.
MORRIS: Oh, I'm not so sure. The "USA Today" poll has a 48:44
Democratic advantage.
HANNITY: They're anxious.
MORRIS: Republican polls have it tied. I don't think -- you know,
Bush has --
HANNITY: There are a lot up for grabs, and it's very tight.
MORRIS: Bush has 70 to 80 percent popularity, and everybody agrees.
HANNITY: All right, here's my question, though. The DNC released
this video and they're going to put it in a series of ads. They're
basically insinuating all sorts of ways that Bush is a liar.
Let's show some of that tape and get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT: I believe we ought to pay down
national debt and so my budget pays down a record $2 trillion in debt
over the next 10 years.
ANNOUNCER: Bush not only fails to pay down the national debt. He
wants to raise the debt ceiling by $750 billion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: They go, and they're talking points step by step.
MORRIS: What a stupid ad.
HANNITY: Isn't that dumb?
MORRIS: I mean, it's so stupid. Which would you rather run against,
a Democratic congress that has a 45 percent approval rating or a
president that has a 75? These guys aren't the brightest.
HANNITY: No, they're really not.
MORRIS: That's the dumbest.
HANNITY: That's the dumbest.
MORRIS: But, you know.
HANNITY: It's a different world post-09-11.
MORRIS: Yeah, but the problem that the Democrats have -- that the
Republicans have, is the Democrats are hugging Bush on the war.
They're saying there's no difference between us on the war. We agree
with you completely. And when say yes to someone, like I say in my
book, it disembowels them. They can't at that point use it as an
issue.
COLMES: I think the question is, is that ad true? Is it truthful,
what they're saying?
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: We'll continue on the other side of the break.
Will President Bush's popularity be enough to get more Republicans
elected in November? Well, we'll find out soon enough. Just 186 days
to go, until election day.
When we come back, we'll have the answer to the HANNITY & COLMES
question of the day: what percentage of the United States population are
immigrants or children of immigrants?
And don't forget, log on to FOXNEWS.COM. You can become a FOX fan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And the answer tonight to the HANNITY & COLMES question of
the day: what percentage of the United States population are immigrants
or the children of immigrants?
20 percent, including, by the way, yours truly.
COLMES: And me.
HANNITY: And including him. What about you? No?
MORRIS: No. No. He is a space alien.
COLMES: What? Why are you insulting me?
HANNITY: With his liberal views. Come on. He is taking a shot at
you.
COLMES: I want an attorney.
HANNITY: I want to go back to this strategy that they're going to
attack, attack, attack. Attack works, right? That's why they go back
to it? That's all they have? The Democrats against Republicans?
MORRIS: The Democratic strategy is founded and has to be founded not
in an act of attack, but an act of love. Because what the Democrats are
doing that is skillful, is they're saying to George Bush, we love the
war on terror. We'll never criticize you.
HANNITY: They're not really doing that. I don't see that.
MORRIS: You don't hear them attacking. Any time Byrd or Biden says
something, he gets closed down and shuts up for a month and a half.
You don't hear the Democrats using that issue. And what that does, is
it means Bush has to run this campaign only on domestic issue.
Now, what his advisors have been doing, is that they have been saying
speak out on an issue a day. But that's garbage, because he looks
trivial doing it.
HANNITY: But look, he's not running -- these are the midterm
elections. Historically, presidents lose in midterm elections, usually
pretty big.
All the evidence shows it's going to be very close, very tight. Senate
and the House of Representatives.
MORRIS: But Bush could win these elections if he does it right.
What he needs to do is to stop talking about these trivial little
issues, like I did with Clinton, because it's a war going on. They
won't tolerate that.
But take the war on terror and make it domestic through the issue of
immigration. By taking a strong position on immigration, he can take an
issue the Democrats can't support.
HANNITY: And homeland security.
MORRIS: And at the same time, push amnesty for Mexican aliens based
on good citizenship.
COLMES: We're short on time. I want to get a couple of things in.
Public Opinion Strategies is a polling company that Bush has hired --
he uses them. But he's put out this image that he doesn't respond to
pollsters and polls.
MORRIS: I know. He just pays more than Clinton did for polling.
COLMES: Right. But he gets all this polling information. They put
out this memo, these talking points. Political environment is getting
back to pre-09-11, according to this? Do you agree to that? We're
getting back to pre-09-11, politically?
MORRIS: If it is, Bush is going down. Bush has -- Bush could either
be an 80 percent president or a 50 percent president, based on whether
the war on terror is the dominant topic.
COLMES: And it may not be.
MORRIS: If it is, he is at 80. If it's not, is he at 50.
COLMES: And they say use Mr. Frank Mail (ph), which is using,
basically it's using franking privileges, which they should use to get
their message out. That's illegal, isn't it? And that's what they're
advising Republicans to do.
MORRIS: Yeah, but the point is, that what the Republicans are missing
and Bush is missing, is that if the 09-11 sense of urgency is not
present in `02, Bush is going to get killed in the midterm elections.
And what he has to do is to find domestic policy takeouts, and I think
there are two of them. I said immigration. My second one is drug
testing for high school students, with parental consent. Because that
can make drugs and terror and immigration the issues for `02.
HANNITY: Good to see you, Dick. All the best with your book.
MORRIS: Thank you.
HANNITY: That is all the time we have left this evening.
Before we go we go to Washington, and the hose of FOX NEWS SUNDAY,
Tony Snow.
TONY SNOW, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Thanks, guys.
This week on FOX NEWS SUNDAY, Yasser Arafat goes free. Israel presses
its siege of the Church of the Nativity and strikes targets on the West
Bank. Israeli P.M. Ariel Sharon prepares to visit the U.S. And there's
talk of a peace conference.
What does it all mean? We'll quiz National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice.
Congress says the administration isn't doing enough on homeland
security, so what do the critics want? We'll ask the chairman of the
Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham.
And our panel, Brit Hume, Marl Lions (ph) and Juan Williams (ph) and
Bill Crystal (ph) on Bill Clinton's future as a TV host.
That's this week on FOX NEWS SUNDAY. Now, back to you.
HANNITY: Be sure to watch FOX NEWS SUNDAY this weekend, with our good
friend, Tony Snow. Check your local listings.
That's it. Stay with us. Greta Van Susteren coming up next. Have a
great weekend. We'll see you back here Monday.
Interview With Dick Morris
Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes
05/03/2002
Fox News: Hannity & Colmes