WOODRUFF: Brit, your question for Senator Quayle. Once again, let me caution the audience: please, keep your reactions as quiet as possible. Brit?

HUME: Senator, I want to take you back if I can to the question Judy asked you about some of the apprehensions people may feel about your being a heart beat away from the presidency. And let us assume if we can for the sake of this question that you have become Vice President and the President is incapacitated for one reason or another, and you have to take the reins of power. When that moment came, what would be the first steps that you'd take, and why?

QUAYLE: First - first, I'd say a prayer for myself and for the country that I'm about to lead. And then I would assemble his people and talk. And I think this question keeps going back to the qualifications and what kind of Vice President in this hypothetical situation, if I had to assume the responsibilities of President, what I would be. And as I have said, age alone, although I can tell you, after the experiences of these last few week in the campaign, I've added ten years to my age, age alone is not the only qualification. You've got to look at experience, and you've got to look at accomplishments, and can you make a difference. Have I made a difference in the United States Senate where I've served for eight years? Yes, I have. Have I made a difference in the Congress that I've served for 12 years? Yes, I have. As I said before, looking at the issue of qualifications - and I am delighted that it comes up, because on the three most important challenges facing America, arms control and national security, jobs and education and budget deficit, I have more experience and accomplishments than does the Governor of Massachusetts. I have been in the Congress and I've worked on these issues. And believe me, when you look at arms control and trying to deal with the Soviet Union, you cannot come at it from a naive position. You have to understand the Soviet Union. You have to understand how they will respond. Sitting on that Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years has given me the experience to deal with the Soviet Union and how we can move forward. That is just one of the troubling issues that's going to be facing this nation, and I'm prepared.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen.

BENTSEN: Well, I can't leave something on the table that he's charged me with, and so let's get to that one. When you talk about the breakfast club, as you know, that was perfectly legal. And I formed it, and I closed it down almost immediately because I thought the perception was bad. But it's the same law - it's the same law - that lets you invite high priced lobbyists down to Williamsburg. And bring them down there and entertain them playing golf, playing tennis, and bringing Republican Senators down there, to have exchanged for that contributions to their campaign. It's the same kind of law that lets you have honorariums - and you've collected over a quarter of a million dollars of honorariums now, speaking to various interest groups. And there's no control over what you do with that money. You can spend it on anything you want to. You can spent it on golf club dues, if you want to do that. Now, that's what I've seen you do in this Administration. And that's why we need campaign reform laws, and why I support them. And you in turn have voted against them time and time again. (Applause)

WOODRUFF: John Margolis, question for Senator Quayle.

MARGOLIS: Senator Quayle, in recent years the Reagan administration has scaled back the activities of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, prompted in part by Vice President Bush's Task Force on Regulatory Relief. The budget for the agency has been cut by 20 percent and the number of inspections and manufacturing plants has been reduced by 33 percent. This has had a special effect in this area where many people work in the meat packing industry, which has a far higher rate of serious injuries than almost any other injury, a rate which appears to have been rising, although we're not really sure, because some of the largest companies have allegedly falsifying their reports. Would you acknowledge to the hundreds of injured and maimed people Nebraska, Iowa and elsewhere in the Midwest that in this case deregulation may have gone too far and the government should reassert itself in protecting workers' rights.

QUAYLE: The premise of your question, John, is that somehow this administration has been lax in enforcement of the OSHA regulations. And I disagree with that. And I'll tell you why. If you want to ask some business people that I talk to periodically, they complain about the tough enforcement of this administration and, furthermore, let me tell you this for the record, when we have found violations in this administration, there has not only been tough enforcement, but there have been the most severe penalties - the largest penalties in the history of the Department of Labor - have been levied when these violations have been found. There is a commitment and there will always be a commitment to the safety of our working men and women. They deserve it and we're committed to them. Now, the broader question goes to the whole issue of deregulation and has deregulation worked or has deregulation not worked. In my judgment deregulation has worked. We have a deregulated economy and we have produced through low taxes, not high taxes, through deregulation - the spirit of entrepreneurship, the individual going out and starting a business, the businessman or women willing to go out and risk their investments to start up a business and hire people. We have produced 17 million jobs in this country since 1982. Deregulation as a form of political philosophy is a good philosophy. It's one that our opponents disagree with. They want a centralized government. But we believe in the market, we believe in the people and yes, there's a role of government and the role of government is to make sure that those safety - and health and the welfare of the people is taken care of. And we'll continue to do that.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen?

BENTSEN: Well, I think you see once again a piece of Democratic legislation that's been passed to try protect the working men and women of America. And then you've seen an administration that came in and really didn't have it's heart in that kind of an enforcement. A good example of that is the environmental protection laws that we were talking about a moment ago. This administration came in and put in a James Watt, an Ann Gorsuch, now that's the Bonnie and Clyde, really, of environmental protection. And that's why it's important that you have people that truly believe and trying to represent the working men and women of America. Most employers do a good job of that, but some of them put their profits before people and that's why you have to have OSHA and that's why you have to have tough and good and fair enforcement of it and that's what a Democratic administration would do to help make this working place a safer and better place to be employed.

WOODRUFF: John Margolis, another question for Senator Bentsen.

MARGOLIS: Senator Bentsen, since you have been in the Senate, the government has spent increasing amounts of money in an effort to protect the family farmer. Though most of the subsidies seem to go - do go to the largest and richest farmers who presumably need it least, while it's the smaller farmers who are often forced to sell out, sometimes to their large farmer neighbor who's gotten more subsidies to begin with. Despite the fact that I believe you, sir, are a rather large farmer, yourself, do you believe that it's time to uncouple the subsidy formula from the amount of land the farmer has and target Federal money to the small and medium size farmer?

BENTSEN: Well, I've supported that. I voted for the 50,000 limitation to get away from the million dollar contributions to farmer. You know, of the four that are on this ticket, I'm the only on that was born and reared on a farm and still involved in farming, so I think I understand their concerns and their problems. Now, I feel very strongly that we ought to be doing more for the American farmer and what we've seen under this administration is neglect of that farmer. We've seen them drive 220,000 farmers off the farm. They seem to think the answer is move them to town, but we ought not to be doing that. What you have seen them do is cut the farm assistance for the rural areas by over 50 percent. We're seeing rural hospitals close all over the country because of this kind of an administration. We've seen an administration that has lost much of our market abroad, because they have not had a trade policy. We saw our market loss by some 40 percent. And that's one of the reasons that we've seen the cost of the farm program, which was only about two and a half billion dollars when they took office, now go to about $25 billion. Now, we can bring that kind of a cost down and get more to market prices if we'll have a good trade policy. I was in January visiting with Mr. Takeshita, the new Prime Minister of Japan. I said, "You're paying five times as much for beef as we pay for our in country - pay for it in our country, six times as much for rice. You have a $60 billion trade surplus with us. You could improve the standard of living of your people. You're spending 27 percent of your disposable income. We spend 14 or 15 percent." "When you have that kind of barrier up against us, that's not free and fair trade and we don't believe that should continue." We would be pushing very hard to open up those markets and stand up for the American farmer and see that we recapture those foreign markets and I think we can do it with the Dukakis-Bentsen administration.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle?

QUAYLE: Senator Bentsen talks about recapturing the foreign markets. Well, I'll tell you one way that we're not going to recapture the foreign markets and that is if, in fact, we have another Jimmy Carter grain embargo. (Equal amounts of cheering and booing) Jimmy Carter - Jimmy Carter grain embargo set the American farmer back. You know what the farmer's interested in? Net farm income. Every one percent in increase in interest rates, a billion dollars out of the farmer's pocket. Net farm income, increased inflation, another billion dollars. Another thing that a farmer is not interested in and that's supply management that the Democratic platform talks about. But the Governor of Massachusetts, he has a farm program. He went to the farmers in the Midwest and told them not to grow corn, not to grow soybeans, but to grow Belgium [sic] endive. That's what his - that's what he and his Harvard buddies think of the American farmer, grow Belgium endive. To come in and to tell our farmers not to grow corn, not to grow soybeans, that's the kind of farm policy you'll get under a Dukakis administration and one I think the American farmer rightfully will reject.

WOODRUFF: Tom Brokaw, a question for Senator Bentsen.

BROKAW: Senator Bentsen, you were a businessman before you entered the U.S. Senate. Let me offer you an inventory if I may: Lower interest rates, lower unemployment, lower inflation and an arms control deal with the Soviet Union. Now two guys come through your door at your business and say, "We'd like you to change," without offering a lot of specifics. Why would you accept their deal?

BENTSEN: You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity, too. (Laughter and applause) This is an administration that has more than doubled the national debt, and they've done that in less than eight years. They have taken this country from the No. 1 lender nation in the world to the No. 1 debtor nation in the world. And the interest on that debt next year, on this Reagan-Bush debt of our nation, is going to be $640 for every man, woman, and child in America because of this kind of a credit-card mentality. So we go out and we try to sell our securities every week, and hope that the foreigners will buy them. And they do buy them. But every time they do, we lose some of our economic independence for the future. Now they've turned around and they've bought 10 percent of the manufacturing base of this country. They bought 20 percent of the banks. They own 46 percent of the commercial real estate in Los Angeles. They are buying America on the cheap. Now, when we have other countries that can't manage their economy down in Central and South America, we send down the American ambassador, we send down the International Monetary Fund, and we tell them what they can buy and what they can sell and how to run their economies. The ultimate irony would be to have that happen to us, because foreigners finally quit buying our securities. So what we need in this country is someone like Mike Dukakis, who gave ten balanced budgets in a row there, and was able to do that, meet that kind of a commitment, set those tough priorities. We need an administration that will turn this trade policy around and open up those markets, stand tough with our trading partners to help keep the jobs at home and send the products abroad.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle.

QUAYLE: Senator Bentsen talks about running up the debt. Well, the governor of Massachusetts has run up more debt than all the governors in the history of Massachusetts combined, going back to the days of the Pilgrims. I don't believe that that's the kind of policy that we want. The question went to the heart of the matter, Tom. You asked the question why would we change. Well, we have changed since 1980. We've got interest rates down, we've got inflation down, people are working again, America is held in respect once again around the world. But we are going to build on that change. And as we made those positive changes of lower interest rates, lower rate of inflation, the governor of Massachusetts fought us every step of the way. We are proud of the record of accomplishment and the opportunities and the hope for millions of Americans. Hope and opportunity of these Americans is because of the policies that we have had for the last eight years, and we want to build on that and change it for even the better.

WOODRUFF: Tom, a question for Senator Quayle.

BROKAW: Senator Quayle, as you mentioned here tonight, you actively supported the invasion of Grenada, which was a military operation to rescue some American medical students and to rescue an island from a Marxist takeover. If military force was necessary in that endeavor, why not use the military to go after the South American drug cartels and after General Noriega, for that matter, in a surgical strike, since drugs in the minds of most Americans pose a far greater danger to many more people? (Scattered applause)

QUAYLE: You are absolutely right that the drug problem is the No. 1 issue.

BROKAW: But would you please address the military aspect of it.

QUAYLE: I will address the military aspect, if I may respond. The military aspect of the drug problem is being addressed. As a matter of fact, we are using the Department of Defense in a coordinated effort, in reconnaissance. But I don't believe that we are going to turn the Department of Defense into a police organization. We are using our military assets in a prudent way to deal with interdiction, and we've made some success in this area. Seventy tons of cocaine have been stopped. But, you know, when you look at the drug problem - and it is a tremendous problem, and there are no easy solutions to it - it's a complicated problem, and it's heading up the effort to try to create a drug-free America, which is a challenge and a goal of all of us. Not only will we utilize national defense and the Department of Defense, but we've got to get on the demand side of the ledger; we've got to get to education. And education ought to begin at home, and it ought to be reinforced in our schools. And there's another thing that will be more important than the premise of this question on a hypothetical of using troops. We will use the military assets, we will use military assets - but we need to focus on another part of this problem, and that problem is law enforcement. And here is where we have a major disagreement with the governor of Massachusetts. He is opposed to the death penalty for drug kingpins. We believe people convicted of that crime deserve the death penalty, as does the legislation that's in the Congress that is supported by a bipartisan, including many Democrats of his party. He also was opposed to mandatory drug sentencing for drug dealers in the state of Massachusetts. You cannot have a war on drugs, you cannot be tough on drugs and weak on crime.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen.

BENTSEN: It's interesting to see that the Senator from Indiana, when we had a resolution on the floor of the United States Senate sponsored by Senator Dole, that this government would make no deal with Noriega - that the Senator from Indiana was one of the dozen senators that voted against it. It's also interesting to see that one of his campaign managers that's trying to help him with his image was also hired by Noriega to help him with his image in Panama. (Shouts and applause) What we have seen under this administration - we have seen them using eight cabinet officers, twenty-eight different agencies, all fighting over turf - and that is one thing we would correct under a Dukakis-Bentsen administration. We would put one person in charge in the war against drugs, and we would commit the resources to get that job done. Now, Mike Dukakis has been able to do that type of thing in the state of Massachusetts by cutting the drug use in the high schools while it's going up around the rest of the country, by putting in a drug educational program that the Drug Enforcement Agency said was a model to the country. We would be doing that around the rest of the country. That's a positive attack against drugs.

WOODRUFF: Brit Hume, a question for Senator Quayle.

HUME: Senator, I want to take you back to the question that I asked you earlier about what would happen if you were to take over in an emergency, and what you would do first and why. You said you would say a prayer, and you said something about a meeting. What would you do next? (Laughter)

QUAYLE: I don't believe that it's proper for me to get into the specifics of a hypothetical situation like that. The situation is that if I was called upon to serve as the president of this country, or the responsibilities of the president of this country, would I be capable and qualified to do that? And I've tried to list the qualifications of twelve years in the United States Congress. I have served in the Congress for twelve years; I have served in the Congress and served eight years on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I have traveled a number of times - I've been to Geneva many times to meet with our negotiators as we were hammering out the INF Treaty; I've met with the western political leaders - Margaret Thatcher, Chancellor Kohl - I know them, they know me. I know what it takes to lead this country forward. And if that situation arises, yes, I will be prepared, and I will be prepared to lead this country, if that happens. (Applause)

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen.

BENTSEN: Once again I think what we are looking at here is someone that can step in at the presidency level at the moment, if that tragedy would occur. And if that's the case, again you have to look at maturity of judgment, and you have to look at breadth of experience. You have to see what kind of leadership roles that person has played in his life before that crisis struck him. And if you do that type of thing, then you arrive at a judgment that I think would be a wise one. And I hope that would mean that you would say we are going to vote for Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen. (Applause)

WOODRUFF: Brit, question for Senator Bentsen.

HUME: Senator, I want to take you back if I can to the celebrated Breakfast Club, when it was first revealed that you had a plan to have people pay $10,000 a plate to have breakfast with you. You handled it with disarming, not to say charming, candor, you said it was a mistake, and you disbanded it and called the whole idea off. And you were widely praised for having handled it deftly. The question I have is: If The Washington Post had not broken that story and other media picked up on it, what can you tell us tonight as to why we should not believe that you would still be having those breakfasts to this day? (Scattered laughter)

BENTSEN: I really must say, Brit, I don't make many mistakes, but that one was a real doozy. And I agree with that. And, as you know, I immediately disbanded it. It was perfectly legal. And you have all kinds of such clubs on the Hill - and you know that. But I still believe that the better way to go is to have a campaign reform law that takes care of that kind of a situation. Even though it's legal, the perception is bad. So I would push very strong to see that we reform the entire situation. I'd work for that end, and that's what my friend from Indiana has opposed repeatedly, vote after vote.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle.

QUAYLE: He disbanded the club, but he's still got the money. He is the number one - he is the number one receiver of political action committee money. Now, Senator Bentsen has talked about reform. Well, let me tell you about the reform that we're pushing. Let's eliminate political action committees, the special interest money. There's legislation before the Congress to do that. That way, we won't have to worry about breakfast clubs, or who's the number one PAC raiser. We can go back and get the contributions from the working men and women and the individuals of America. We can also strengthen our two party system - and it needs strengthening - and rely more on the political parties than we have in the past. That's the kind of campaign reform that I'm for, and I hope the Senator will join me.

WOODRUFF: John Margolis, a question for Senator Bentsen.

MARGOLIS: Senator, we've all just finished - most America has just finished one of the hottest summers it can remember. And apparently this year will be the fifth out of the last nine that are among the hottest on record. No one knows, but most scientists think, that something we're doing, human beings are doing, are exacerbating this problem, and that this could, in a couple of generations, threaten our descendants comfort and health and perhaps even their existence. As Vice President what would you urge our government to do to deal with this problem? And specifically as a Texan, could you support a substantial reduction in the use of fossil fuels which might be necessary down the road?

BENTSEN: Well, I think what you can do in that one, and which would be very helpful, is to use a lot more natural gas, which burns a lot cleaner. And what Mike Dukakis has said is that he'll try to break down those regulatory roadblocks that you have in the regulatory agency that denies much of the passage of that natural gas to the northeast, a way, in turn, can fight against acid rain which is another threat, because it's sterilizing our lakes, it's killing our fish. And it's interesting to me to see in the resume of Senator Quayle that he brags on the fact that he's been able to fight the acid rain legislation. I don't think that that's a proper objective in trying to clean up this environment. But the greenhouse effect is one that has to be a threat to all of us, and we have to look for alternative sources of fuel. And I've supported that very strongly. The Department of Energy is one that has cut back substantially on the study of those alternative sources of fuels. We can use other things that'll help the farmer. We can convert corn to ethanol, and I would push for that very strong. So absolutely. I'll do those things that are necessary to put the environment of our country number one. Because if we don't protect that, we'll destroy the future of our children. And we must be committed to trying - to clean up the water, clean up the air, and do everything we can, not only from a research standpoint, but also in the applied legislation to see that that's carried out.

WOODRUFF: Senator Quayle?

QUAYLE: Vice President George Bush has said that he will take on the environmental problem. He has said further that he will deal with the acid rain legislation and reduce millions of tons of the S02 content. That legislation won't get through the Congress this year. But it will get through in a George Bush Administration, a George Bush Administration that is committed to the environment. Now the greenhouse effect is an important environmental issue. It is important for us to get the data in, to see what alternatives we might have to the fossil fuels, and make sure we know what we're doing. And there are some explorations and things that we can consider in this area. The drought highlighted the problem that we have, and therefore, we need to get on with it, and in a George Bush Administration, you can bet that we will.

WOODRUFF: John, a question for Senator Quayle.

MARGOLIS: Senator, as Vice President your most important contribution would be the advice you gave the President. One of the most troubling facts that's going to face the new Administration is the fact that the United States has now become the world's largest debtor nation. In 1987 foreigners underwrote our debts to the tune of about $138 billion. Last week a top official of the Japanese Economic Planning Agency bragged that Japan now is in a position to influence the value of the dollar, of our interest rates, and even our stock prices. And he warned that one day maybe they'd do just that. If you were Vice President of the United States and Japan did that, what would you tell the President to do?

QUAYLE: When you look at dealing with this total problem - it's not just with the Japanese, but the underlying question on this total world debt problem - you have got to see, why are we a debtor, and what is attracting the foreign investment into our country today, whether it's Japanese or others. I would rather have people come over here and to make investments in this country, rather than going elsewhere. Because by coming over here, and making investments in this country, we are seeing jobs. Do you realize that today we are producing Hondas and exporting Hondas to Japan? We are the envy of the world. The United States - (Laughter)

QUAYLE: Some of Senator Bentsen's supporters laugh at that. They laugh at that because they don't believe that the United States of America is the envy of the world. Well, I can tell you, the American people think the United States of America is the envy of the world. (Applause)

WOODRUFF: Senator - oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

QUAYLE: We are the greatest nation in this world, and the greatest economic power. Now, there's been some talk in Congress about forgiveness of debt. Forgiveness of debt is wrong. Forgiveness of international debt would be counterproductive. And I would like to see those that talk about forgiving debt, Senator Bentsen, go out and talk about a farmer that's in debt that doesn't have his forgiven. That's not the kind of policy George Bush will have.

WOODRUFF: Senator Bentsen.

BENTSEN: Well, I've told you what I'd do about trade and trying to help turn that situation around. But what we also should do is get them to give us more burden sharing when it comes to national defense. We have a situation today where, on a per capita basis, people in Western Europe are spending about one-third as much as we are in our country. And then when you go to Japan, where we're spending 6-1/2 percent on defense of the democracies, they're spending one percent. I met with some of the Japanese business leaders, talking to them about it. And I said, you know, we have 50,000 troops here in Japan, protecting the democracies of Asia. And it costs $3.5 billion a year. You're the number two economic power in the world. You ought to measure up to that responsibility and carry some of that cost. I said, if we were not doing what we're doing, we'd have a big budget surplus. And I said, you'd have chaos, because you get 55 percent of your oil from the Persian Gulf, and you wouldn't have the U.S. Navy down there to take care of that. Now, the Senator from Indiana, when we passed a resolution in the United States Senate to ask for burden sharing on that cost to keep those sea lanes open from the Japanese, he votes against that. I don't understand that.