Tim Russert News & Articles of a Great Journalist

Meet the Press with Tim Russert

June 1, 2008

In a single, recent interview, prior to his death on June 13, 2008, Tim Russert's incisive scrutiny exposed the self-deception of the Bush Administration as clearly and as convincingly as possible. This is not a rant against the Bush Administration. This is a tribute to a great Journalist, because the best way to acknowledge a man is to showcase his own work.

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan rocks Washington and rattles the White House with his scathing new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." Why did he say one thing at the podium and quite another in his book? We'll ask him. Our guest, the man who worked for George W. Bush for seven years, Scott McClellan...

...with us for an exclusive Sunday morning interview, the man who has had Washington buzzing all week, former press secretary to President Bush, Scott McClellan, and his new book, "What Happened."

Welcome.

MR. SCOTT McCLELLAN: Tim, thanks for having me on today. Glad to be here.

MR. RUSSERT: The response has been extraordinary to this book. You have been called by your fellow Republicans a "turncoat," "a snitch," "Benedict Arnold." Bob Dole, ranking Republican in all of Washington, sent an e-mail and said this: "Scott.

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don't have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, spurned on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique. In my nearly 36 years of public service, I've known a few like you. ...

"You should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you've had--would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively. You're a hot ticket now but don't you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

Do you?

MR. McCLELLAN: No. I have a lot of respect for Senator Dole. He was a noble public servant and spent a--time in the military. You know, I, I think...

MR. RUSSERT: But the feeling, the feelings clearly aren't mutual.

MR. McCLELLAN: I understand. And people--I knew that this book was going to spur a reaction. This book takes aim at Washington, and there are many in Washington that were not going to be happy with it. I knew that going in. This is an indictment of the culture in Washington.

MR. RUSSERT: The issue that seems to be being used against you, Scott McClellan, is hypocrisy, that you said one thing at the podium and wrote another in the book. People go back to March of 2004. Richard Clarke, the director of counterterrorism, had left the White House, wrote a book, "Against All Enemies," and this is what Scott McClellan said about Mr. Clarke. Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. McCLELLAN: Why all the sudden, if he had all these grave concerns, did he not raise these sooner? This is one and a half years after he left the administration, and now all of the sudden he's raising these grave concerns that he claims he had.

He has written a book, and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: You could be describing yourself.

MR. McCLELLAN: I could. And, in fact, that is, I think, the White House reaction today about me. Let me tell you a couple things. One, I got caught up in the Washington permanent campaign culture just like everybody else. I came here with high hopes that we could change Washington, that the president was a bipartisan leader in Texas. It didn't happen. And that's one of the things I wanted to look at in the book, is why did we go so badly off course?

In terms of Dick Clarke, I actually ran into him in New York the other night. I actually apologized to him. I had not read the book...

MR. RUSSERT: What did you say to him?

MR. McCLELLAN: ...and here I was--we had a brief conversation and, and I said--I basically said, "I, I apologize for what I was saying about you then. I had not read your book."

MR. RUSSERT: I think what people are groping for is when did you undergo this transformation, this intellectual journey, this evolution? Ari Fleischer, your former boss, the man who you replaced at the White House, said this: "Scott told me that this book really did change. And he said this book ended up a lot different from the way it got started. He told me he didn't know if he could write a book like this a year ago."

And we refer you to your book proposal, which was sent around in January of '07: "`The Unvarnished Truth About George W. Bush: His Former Spokesman Talks Candidly About the President, the Press, Washington Politics, and his White House Days' by Scott McClellan. There have been a number of books written about President Bush, including many more recent ones that portray him in a very negative light.

"This book's going to take a much different look at our Nation's 43rd President. While being supportive of the President, I want to give readers a candid look into who George W. Bush is, what he believes, why he believes it so strongly, what drives him.

"It will be an insider's account of his behind-the-scenes persona, including his decision-making style, his personal discipline, his composure under fire, his sense of humor.

"And, I will directly address myths that have been associated with him, some deliberately perpetuated by activist liberals and some created by the media, and look at the reality behind those myths."

That's not the book you wrote.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, actually, if you look at that whole book proposal, there are a number of items in there, issues in there that are a part of this book. Particularly when I highlight in there the bipartisanship that, yes, absolutely, Tim, I say in the preface of the book that many of the conclusions I came to at the end were not ones that I would've embraced at the beginning, and I went through a process here to make sure I got to the truth. And I believe I have gotten to the truth from my perspective.

MR. RUSSERT: But after suggesting that there had been a lot of negative books about George Bush, you write this: "Bush was a leader unable to acknowledge that he got it wrong, unwilling to grow in office by learning from his mistakes--too stubborn to change and grow." That's a very negative view of the president.

MR. McCLELLAN: It is a true reflection of this president. We got into the Iraq war, we went into it in a way that, as I say in the book, which was based on a "permanent campaign" mentality. It wasn't as open and forthright as it could be, and I think that really hurt us later. And when you go to war, you have to build bipartisan support and then you have to sustain it. We couldn't sustain it because we were not open in the beginning, and the president could not go back and admit some of the mistakes that were made early in the, early in the buildup to the war.

MR. RUSSERT: You write...

MR. McCLELLAN: And I think that--I think that that hurts our troops the most because they deserve as much bipartisan support as we can get here in, in Washington, D.C., and the president failed to do that.

MR. RUSSERT: You write in the book, "The campaign to sell the war didn't begin in earnest until the fall of 2002. But, as I would later come to learn, President Bush had decided to confront the Iraqi regime several months earlier. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz all saw September 11th as an opportunity to go after Saddam Hussein, take out his regime, eliminate a threat, make the Middle East more secure. And Bush agreed. ...

"Message discipline sometimes meant avoiding forthrightness--for example, evasively dismissing questions about the risks of war as `speculation,' since the decision to go to war supposedly had not yet been made."

And certainly, you were part of that. August 2002, Scott McClellan: "I think it's premature to speculate about--premature to speculate because the President has made no decision about any particular course of action."

A decision had already been made, you said.

MR. McCLELLAN: I, I--well, I came to learn later that that decision was made.

MR. RUSSERT: When?

MR. McCLELLAN: I was deputy press secretary at that time.

MR. RUSSERT: When did you learn?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, when the president did interviews with Bob Woodward for his book, when the--when I heard the president talk in world leader meetings after I became press secretary about how passionately he cared about spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East. The real driving motivation, as you've touched on there, was trying to transform the Middle East and spread democracy throughout it. And Iraq would be the linchpin for doing that. Now, that was not something that we emphasized. It was something that was mentioned, but it was downplayed in the lead-up to the war. And I later came to learn that very clearly when I was press secretary. There are, there are elements to that earlier on when I would participate in some meetings for my predecessor and hear that as well.

MR. RUSSERT: But again you write this: "The administration ... shaded the truth; downplaying the major reason for going to war, emphasizing a lesser motivation that could arguably be dealt with in other ways; ... trying to make the WMD threat and the Iraqi connection to terrorism appear just a little more certain, a little less questionable, than they were; quietly ignoring or disregarding some of the crucial caveats in the intelligence, minimizing evidence that pointed in the opposite direction; using innuendo and implication to encourage Americans to believe as fact some things that were unclear and possibly false (such as the idea that Saddam has an active nuclear weapons program) and other things that were overplayed or completely wrong (such as implying Saddam might have an operational relationship with al Qaeda) ...

"The goal was to win the debate, to get Congress and the public to support the decision to confront Saddam. In the pursuit of that goal, embracing a high level of candor and honesty about the potential war--its larger objectives, its likely costs, and its possible risks--came a distant second."

And yet again, here's Scott McClellan, September 2003, in front of the American people. Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. McCLELLAN: Saddam Hussein possessed and used chemical and biological--used, used chemical weapons against his own people. He had a history of possessing and using...

Unidentified Woman: Thirteen years before?

MR. McCLELLAN: ...using weapons of mass destruction. He had a history of invading his neighbors. He had large unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. He defied the international community for 12 years and some 17 resolutions.

Woman: ...tell people that there was an imminent, direct threat.

MR. McCLELLAN: The president made it very clear that we need to act to confront threats in a post-September 11th world before it's too late, before those threats reach our shores and it's too late.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Were you shading the truth? Were you part of the innuendo? Were you part of the propaganda campaign?

MR. McCLELLAN: I was part of this propaganda campaign, absolutely. And, Tim, let me mention a couple of things. First, you know, there's--there was the legendary British economist John Maynard Keynes who used to be accused of frequently changing his positions. When one accuser attacked him, he responded, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" And when I was able to step out of that White House bubble--when you're in that White House bubble, it's all-consuming. You know what it's like, 18-hour days.

MR. RUSSERT: And yet, when you were in the White House, you had some of these doubts but apparently didn't express them. The president was on MEET THE PRESS February of 2004. I asked a question, he responded. Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity?

PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: I think it's--that's an interesting question. Please elaborate on that a little bit. A war of choice or a war of necessity? I mean, it's a war of necessity. We, we, we--my judgment, we had no choice when we look at the intelligence I looked at that says the man was a threat.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: You write in your book, "I remember talking to the president about this question following the MEET THE PRESS interview. He seemed puzzled and asked me what Russert was getting at with the question. This, in turn, puzzled me. Surely this administration between--this distinction between a necessary, unavoidable war and a war that the United States could have avoided but chose to wage was an obvious one that Bush must have thought about in the months before the invasion. Evidently, it wasn't obvious to the president, nor did his national security team make sure it was." It was being debated everywhere...

MR. McCLELLAN: True.

MR. RUSSERT: ...all across the country, is this a war of choice, or a war of necessity? The president seemed unaware of that.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. As, as you know, I was sitting right there off to the side, and after the interview had ended, I did walk back into that room, and, and it struck me. That was--and I write about it in, in the book in some detail.

MR. RUSSERT: Why didn't you say to him, "Mr. President, this is the fundamental issue confronting our country." Why didn't you go to your superiors and say, "Guys, ladies and gentlemen, we have a problem here. This is the fundamental issue, choice or necessity, and the president seems unaware of it."

MR. McCLELLAN: In retrospect, I probably should have. I probably should have said something more about it. But, again, there's so many issues going on, you get caught up in advocating and defending the president's stance. And he'd already made the decision, and the president's someone that, once he makes a decision, as you know, he expects everyone to march in lockstep. I don't--you know, it's tough to go there and try to challenge those views inside an administration that is so insular like that, but it also goes to the president's decision, that he had made this decision to confront Saddam Hussein, and it was going to be either he comes clean or we go to war very early on. That's they way the president operates. He makes the decision, and then it's how do you implement that decision? And I think that happened late in 2001, and then his advisers, from my perspective, I don't think challenged him like they should have about the necessity of going to war. And from my standpoint, it's a moral view, we shouldn't be going to war unless it's absolutely necessary. Now there are--there was justification that could be made to remove Saddam Hussein, separate and apart from that, and plenty to argue there, but we overplayed and overstated the case for war.

MR. RUSSERT: This was Scott McClellan in January of '04 talking about intelligence. Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. McCLELLAN: Intelligence is something that we take very seriously in this administration.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: "Intelligence is something we take very seriously." That's what you're telling the American people. And yet, on an airplane, with the president, you write this: "According to Scooter Libby's grand jury testimony, President Bush had actually engaged in selective declassification himself. He authorized the use of parts of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate in an effort to discredit Joe Wilson's attacks on the credibility of the administration. Now, with those three simple words, `Yeah, I did,' the president was telling me that my public statements about the sanctity of classified intelligence rang hollow." Why didn't you then say, "Mr. President, I've had it."

MR. McCLELLAN: I'll tell you why. I...

MR. RUSSERT: "I'm out of here. I can't do this anymore. I'm out there saying that we have intelligence, we take it seriously, and it's being selectively declassified and leaked to attack political opponents."

MR. McCLELLAN: I, I was stunned by his reaction. I walked off an Air Force One, and he asked what the reporter was shouting at him, and I said, "He, he said that you had authorized the selective leaking of this classified information," which the president has legal authority to do. And no one else in the administration knew, other than the vice president and Scooter Libby. Not the director of Central Intelligence, the national security adviser or the chief of staff. It was very compartmentalized, and that's part of the problem with this White House as well.

But the reason I didn't was because that was the final 10 months of my time in the White House, when my disillusionment increasingly set in. I became dismayed beginning in July of 2005 with the revelations that I had been knowingly misled by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, and then ending with the NIE. And I had made a decision at that point, right around that--right after that, that that was the final straw, that I would leave the administration. My intent was to do it at my three-year mark in July of 2003, just a couple months later, that I'd do it quietly and leave, because I could no longer continue to go through this when I had been decrying the selective leaking of classified information for years, as had the president.

MR. RUSSERT: Let's talk about that podium, October 7th, 2003, when Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were being accused of being part of the whole Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson situation. Scott McClellan defended them. Let's watch.

(Videotape)

MR. McCLELLAN: They're good individuals. They're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I, I had no doubt with--of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: You misled the American people.

MR. McCLELLAN: I did, unknowingly. I, I, I went to both those individuals, asked them point-blank, "Were you involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity in any way?" Both of them told me, unequivocally, "No." Now, the president also told me in a conversation I detail in the book that he had been told the same by Karl Rove in terms...

MR. RUSSERT: So--stop there.

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: Did Karl Rove lie to the president of the United States?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's my belief. But I don't know their specific conversation. I just know what the president told me, which was "Karl told me he was not involved."

MR. RUSSERT: There's a difference in the way you describe the questioning as to the way Mr. Rove described your questioning. Here's what Rove says: "But the fact of the matter is Scott's questions to me were: did I leak Valerie Plame's name, and the answer is no."

You write: "The second time I checked with Rove was on Saturday, September 27, 2003. ... I asked Karl an unambiguous, unqualified catch-all question, `Were you involved in this in any way?' I was" certainly "referring to the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity--information that was believed to be classified--to any reporter.

"Karl replied categorically, `No. Look, I didn't even know about his wife.'"

One of you is not telling the truth.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Karl had also said something very similar to, I think it was on CNN and ABC, when he was asked about questions, "Were you involved in this?" He said, "I did not know her name. I did not leak her name." It's pretty disingenuous. I, I think most people, most objective observers realize that now. He still maintains he wasn't involved in the leaking of her name, yet most objective observers say, yes, he was. He talked to two reporters about her identity, Matt Cooper and Robert Novak. Apparently he was the second confirming source.

But let me mention this. That question, when I said, "Were you involved in this in any way?" and he categorically said no, that is absolutely true. It is what I said under oath to the grand jury, it is what I told investigators. And secondly, that is the same question I asked Scooter--very same question I asked Scooter Libby, because the chief of staff Andy Card came to me shortly after that, that Saturday after the first week, said, "The president and vice president spoke this morning. They want you to give the same assurances that--for Scooter Libby that you gave for Karl Rove," basically exonerating him publicly. I said, "I will do that only if I am given the same assurances by Scooter." And I called him, I got him on the phone, said, "Were you involved in this in any way?" "No, absolutely not."

MR. RUSSERT: Would you...

MR. McCLELLAN: And, and I think White House reporters know, I said I talked to those individuals and they assured me they were not involved, that they can take me on my word when I said that. Unfortunately, that information turned out to be false.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you agree to release your grand jury testimony publicly?

MR. McCLELLAN: I haven't thought about it. I don't know, I don't know if I have the authority to do that or not. I, I'm glad to, you know, certainly share my views, as I have in this book, and talk about it.

MR. RUSSERT: The president said at the time that "if someone committed a crime, they'd no longer work in my administration." Do you believe the president should have fired Karl Rove?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's a, that's a question that the president had to make, and he chose not to.

MR. RUSSERT: But what do you think?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I, I think he should have stood by his word. I think the president should have stood by the word that we said, which is if you were involved in this any way, then you would no longer be in this administration. And Karl was involved in it. That would be a tough decision. I don't know if, if there was any crime committed. I don't--I say I just don't know that in the book. But we had higher standards at the White House. The president said he was going to restore honor, integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn't live up to that. When it became known that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved. And the bar was moved to "if anyone is indicted, they would no longer be here."

MR. RUSSERT: So you think they should've been dismissed.

MR. McCLELLAN: I think so. I mean, Scooter Libby was, and I, and I think that he should...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, he resigned. But you...

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. But that was pushed out.

MR. RUSSERT: But you believe Rove--Rove should've, should've left?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the president should've stood by his word, and that meant Karl should've left.

MR. RUSSERT: You write this: "In years to come, as I worked closely with President Bush, I would come to believe that sometimes he convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment. It is not unlike a witness in a court who does not want to implicate himself in wrongdoing, but is also concerned about perjuring himself."

That's an extraordinary statement to make about the president of the United States.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I, I think it's, it's a statement of--a lot of politicians get into that mode. They come into this atmosphere, and that was talking about a very personal issue there that occurred years ago. And I, I think it's fine for something like that, it's understandable that, you know, "I don't want--I don't recall." But when that transfers into...

MR. RUSSERT: That was his use of cocaine?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's correct, and I recount that story in the book when he says, "I"--you know, told a supporter "I don't remember." Now the--and at that point, that didn't bother me too much because it was understandable, given that it was such an issue of a personal nature that occurred in his younger days, 20, 30 years ago.

MR. RUSSERT: Was it believable?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know. I don't, I don't believe so. I say that in the book that it struck me as how could you not remember? But when that transfers over into other issues, issues of policy, that then, that then becomes a problem. One thing that I, I can point to that you will probably remember very well, and at--your viewers, is that when he was talking about Iran and Iran pursuing nuclear weapons, it later became known that a National Intelligence Estimate had come out before that time--before he was making those remarks and said that they had suspended their nuclear weapons program. He was asked about it. "Do you--were you told--when were you told about this? When were you told about this National Intelligence estimate?" And he said, "I don't remember." I, I just can't find that--I, I just find that hard to believe. Now, he believes it in his heart, I think, but he convinces himself to do so.

MR. RUSSERT: It's self-deception?

MR. McCLELLAN: It is.

MR. ROVE: Like too many Democrats, it strikes me they are ready to give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party’s old pattern of cutting and running. They may be with you at the first shots, but they are not going to be there for the last tough battles. They are wrong, and profoundly wrong, in their approach.

REP. MURTHA: He’s, he’s in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air conditioned office with his big, fat backside, saying, "Stay the course." That’s not a plan. I mean, this guy—I don’t know what his military experience is, but that’s a political statement. This is a policy difference between me and the White House. I disagree completely with what he’s saying.