Online NewsHour: War of Words-- May 1, 1998

WAR OF WORDS

May 1, 1998

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

The growing divide between Republicans and Democrats on the Starr investigation escalated into a war of words between House Speaker Gingrich and President Clinton. Following a background report, Wall Street Journal columnist Paul Gigot and syndicated columnist Mark Shields review the week in politics.

A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
May 1, 1998:
Shields and Gigot review the week in politics.
April 30, 1998:
In his first solo press conference of 1998, President Clinton fielded questions about his moral authority.
April 30, 1998:
A report on NATO expansion.
April 1, 1998:
A judge dismisses Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against the president.
March 16, 1998:
The president denies the latest allegations of sexual misconduct .
March 5, 1998:
The Washington Post reports details of President Clinton's sealed deposition.
February 12, 1998:
Can Kenneth Starr require Secret Service officers to testify?
Browse the Online NewsHour's coverage of the White House, Congress and Europe.
OUTSIDE LINKS:
The White House
U.S. Senate
U.S. House of Representatives

KWAME HOLMAN: Recently House Speaker Newt Gingrich spent a few hours in a Capitol Hill book store signing copies of his new book Lessons Learned the Hard Way. In it Gingrich talks about mistakes he made in dealing with President Clinton in recent years, how he underestimated the President's political resiliency, and how that might have cost Republicans the White House in 1996. This week Gingrich embarked on a new strategy against President Clinton, criticizing him and his allies for the manner in which they've responded to the investigations by independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
Speaker Gingrich's new strategy.

REP. NEWT GINGRICH, Speaker of the House: The fact is if he wants to fire Ken Starr, he can do it in the morning. And if he doesn't want to fire Ken Starr, he should tell his staff to shut up because there's something-- (applause)
KWAME HOLMAN: Gingrich inaugurated his new offensive Monday night at a dinner meeting of GOPAC--the Republican Political Action Committee Gingrich founded.
REP. NEWT GINGRICH: There is something profoundly demeaning and destructive to have the White House systematically undermine an officer of the Department of Justice. And when I watch these paid hacks on television--to be quite honest--I am sickened by how unpatriotically they undermine the Constitution of the United States on behalf of their client.
KWAME HOLMAN: The next day President Clinton was asked about the speaker's comments and responded this way.
The president's response.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Mr. Gingrich said a lot of things last night that I don't think deserve a response and I would think it would not serve the American public well for me to waste my time doing it. I think I need to be focused on the public issues that affect them. And that's what I intend to do.
KWAME HOLMAN: But that afternoon the speaker continued the rhetoric aimed at the president by exchanging sharp words with California Congressman Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. The committee's ongoing investigation of campaign fund-raising abuses during the last presidential campaign has been extremely partisan. And last week committee Democrats blocked an attempt by Republican chairman Dan Burton to subpoena four witnesses. Gingrich compared that act to Republicans' actions during Watergate.
REP. NEWT GINGRICH: Go back in your memory and remember Howard Baker's effort to find the truth and then I think you will understand why we are being forced inch by inch to break through the stone wall and the coverup despite the defense attorney tactics being used by Democrats who ought to be ashamed of it and ought to helping us get at the truth, rather than finding some flimsy excuse to avoid voting for immunity.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Will the speaker yield?
SPOKESPERSON: The chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, for five minutes.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Well, I'm sorry the speaker wouldn't yield to me because I want to tell the speaker that in the Watergate investigation the chairman, Sam Ervin, did not accuse the President of the United States of being a scumbag. He didn't say that he was out to get him. Those were the very words of the chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
KWAME HOLMAN: On Wednesday...Gingrich continued--telling reporters: " This is about breaking the law. This is not about sex. This is not about gossip. This is not about soap operas." And later--referring to the President's request to Congress for money for the International Monetary Fund--Gingrich said, "If the Clinton Administration does not turn over documents and information, if they don't make witnesses available, they're not in a very strong position to demand that we give them any money for anything." At his press conference yesterday, President Clinton once again was asked to respond to the speaker's comments.
MIMI HALL, USA Today: You in your answers have been insisting for quite sometime now that you're able to remain focused on the business of the country and do your work, despite what's going on, but House Speaker Gingrich is making it increasingly clear that unless there's some more cooperation, some more forthcoming, on your administration's part, that your agenda on the Hill is going to be stalled. I wonder if there comes a point where you feel it's your responsibility to provide some more cooperation, so that some work can get done for the American people.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Oh, I don't think anyone really seriously believes that's what the last three or four days have been about. That's a--that's a--they've been about politics. And I'm not going to let--I cannot be--I can be responsible for a lot of things, but I'm not responsible for the speaker's behavior. Neither, however, will I respond to it. The right thing for me to do is to let others defend me as best they can and to go on and worry about the American people.
KWAME HOLMAN: Those others included House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, who yesterday called on the speaker to recuse himself from any possible congressional investigation involving the president.
Democrats respond to Speaker Gingrich's comments.

REP. DICK GEPHARDT: My concern is that he seems to be taking the position of judge and jury. That is, he is deciding these issues before he's even presented with the facts. And I think that disqualifies him from being able to carry out these duties as Speaker of the House. The Speaker of the House should be non-partisan, should be in an investigatory mode, should be looking for facts, trying to help the Congress get to the facts, and observing the rule of law, as he said. I totally agree with him. The rule of law is paramount in this country, and it must be observed, but part of observing the rule of law is carrying out a process in the Congress that complies with our laws and rules.
KWAME HOLMAN: A short time later at his regular news conference the Senate Minority Leader took a similar view of the Gingrich statements.
SEN. TOM DASCHLE: I must say the speaker has unnecessarily politicized what is already a very, very difficult set of circumstances in the House, and I think that Dick Gephardt's letter is appropriate under these very, very difficult politicized circumstances we're experiencing. I have not seen anything like this in the time that I've been in Washington. It's unfortunate. It's counterproductive, I think it sends all the wrong messages to the American people, and I just hope that at some point the speaker will recognize the error of this approach and show some balance and show some statesmanship.
KWAME HOLMAN: President Clinton traveled to California today, where he mixed business with pleasure, speaking to sheet metal workers in San Jose, before getting together with daughter, Chelsea, who attends college at Stanford. Ironically, Speaker Gingrich also was at Stanford today, speaking at the conservative Hoover Institute and ending his week the way he began it.
REP. NEWT GINGRICH: I caused some turmoil on Monday night by articulating two principles that strike me as so self evident that to this day I can't quite figure out how the Washington press corps got so excited. I said two things: the American public has the clear right to know if a law has been broken. Now, that goes, it seems to me, to the heart of Jefferson. And second, that no one is above the law, including the President of the United States.

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