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June 03, 2007

Interview with Newt Gingrich

Fox News Sunday

CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I'm Chris Wallace. Authorities foil a massive terror attack on New York's JFK Airport, next on "Fox News Sunday."

He compares President Bush to Jimmy Carter, talks about the collapse of the Republican Party and calls White House adviser Karl Rove maniacally dumb.

Who's launching this political assault? Our exclusive guest, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

Plus, five months in, is the troop surge in Iraq working? And why should we expect Iran to help us? We'll get answers from our man in Baghdad, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

Then, Fred Thompson gears up to run for president. What will that do to the Republican race? We'll ask our Sunday gang, Brit Hume, Nina Easton, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.

And our Power Player of the Week makes explosive comments about the nature of Islam, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

And good morning again from Fox News in Washington. Here's a quick check of the latest headlines. A Muslim terror cell plot to blow up a jet fuel pipeline to New York's JFK Airport was broken up in the planning stages.

Federal authorities say three suspects are in custody while another man is wanted in Trinidad. One official said if it had been carried out, the devastation would have been, quote, "unthinkable."

Retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, who led coalition forces in Iraq during the first year of occupation, says the best the U.S. can now hope for is to stave off defeat. Sanchez says America has a crisis in its political leadership.

And in Iraq today, six U.S. soldiers were killed in separate incidents, most involving roadside bombs.

Well, joining us now, someone who's always interesting and often controversial. But these days, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is directing his fire not at Democrats but at problems within his own Republican Party.

Mr. Speaker, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER: It's good to be with you.

WALLACE: Let's start with your interview in The New Yorker magazine this week. And I want to quote from it at length. Let's put it up. "Newt Gingrich is one of those who fear that Republicans have been branded with the label of incompetence. He says that the Bush administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter presidency when nothing seemed to go right."

And later, there's this. "Not since Watergate," Gingrich said, "has the Republican Party been in such desperate shape. Let me be clear: 28 percent approval of the president, losing every closely contested Senate seat except one, every one that involved an incumbent -- that's a collapse."

Jimmy Carter? Watergate? Collapse? Are things really that bad?

GINGRICH: Well, let me say, first of all, nothing that I said in The New Yorker disagrees with things I said as early as December of '03 when I talked about having gone off the cliff in Iraq, things I said all through '04 in trying to get the Bush campaign team to shift from attacking Kerry personally to forcing a genuine choice over values and policies, to concerns I raised in December of '04, January and February of '05, about how they were approaching Social Security reform, through what happened at Katrina.

I mean, so what I said in The New Yorker may be compressed, but in fact, it is things that for the last three years I've talked -- I've warned all last year that I suspected we were drifting into a catastrophic defeat. I don't see any other way to read '06 except it was a defeat.

And if we don't have a serious, open discussion of where we are, I don't see how we're going to change.

Just take this week. An American with tuberculosis shows up at the border. We're in the middle of a debate over immigration and controlling the border. He shows up at the border. The computer says do not let him enter and only deal with him in a hazardous suit.

And the border patrol currently is so ill-trained, or the immigration service is so ill-trained, that the guy lets him in -- looks at him with his eyeballs and says, "you know, I don't think he looks sick," and lets him in.

You learn that there are three illegal terrorists in New Jersey who were in the U.S. for 23 years illegally, intercepted by the police 75 times in the last six years, and it was never indicated that they were here illegally.

You go through this list. You say to yourself this government -- I mean, not just the president. This is not about the presidency. The government is not functioning. It's not getting the job done.

WALLACE: But you compare George W. Bush to Jimmy Carter, which, as you well know, is fighting words among Republicans.

GINGRICH: Look, the functional effect in public opinion is about the same. Now, Republicans need to confront this reality.

If you were at 28 percent, 29 percent, 30 percent approval, and if things aren't working, and now you have a fight which splits your own party -- and this immigration fight goes to the core of where we are. If you read Peggy Noonan's column last Friday, which was devastating -- and I think it resonates with where the base of this party is right now. The base of this party is looking up going, "What are we in the middle of -- why are we ramming through an omnibus Teddy Kennedy bill, and attacking Republicans who criticize it, and calling us," for example, as one senator did, "bigots, when all we're saying is this government couldn't possibly implement this bill?"

There's no evidence at all that this government is capable of executing this.

WALLACE: We're going to get to immigration in a second. But White House spokesman Tony Snow pushed back at your comments this week.

GINGRICH: OK.

WALLACE: And let's take a look at them. Here they are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY SNOW, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: When it comes to presidential politics, you know that the first rule is if you're running even in your own party, the first thing you do is you try to differentiate your product, and you always use the president as somebody that you're sort of measuring yourself against.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: He says you're trying to carve out a place in the Republican debate by knocking the president.

GINGRICH: Look, Tony Snow is a great friend, and I admire him a great deal, and it's a nice try. In 1988, no one running for president on the Republican nomination tried to differentiate themselves from Ronald Reagan.

There's a lesson there. Ronald Reagan was enormously popular. The fact is that -- forget presidential politics. We as a country over the next 1.5 years half have to do dramatically better.

You just had a report from Iraq that's very sobering. You have a comment from General Sanchez that should alarm every American. You have the report today of the terrorists being picked up in New York who were trying to blow up the jet fuel.

And by the way, one of those terrorists was picked up on the way to Iran for a conference on Islamic behavior around the world.

WALLACE: Basically, what do you think is wrong with George W. Bush?

GINGRICH: Look, I think that he means very, very well. I think he's very, very sincere. But I don't think that he drives implementation and looks at the reality in which he's trying to implement things. And I think that's why you ended up with, "Brownie, you're doing a great job," when it was obvious to the entire country at Katrina that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had collapsed and was not capable of doing any job at that point.

And I think as a result, the administration has very, very high goals -- Democracy throughout the Middle East -- and very weak bureaucratic support for those goals, and the result is an enormous mismatch in just sheer implementation.

And this is, in the end, a practical country. Americans want their government to work.

WALLACE: You say that this president doesn't solve anything.

GINGRICH: He doesn't methodically insist on changing things. I mean, again, take the example last week. If somebody with tuberculosis, who is actually in the computer system, can't be stopped at the border; if you have three terrorists in New Jersey who have been here illegally for 23 years -- and the Senate, by the way, voted to sanction cities and counties not asking if you're illegal, an amendment to this -- what I think is an absolute disaster of immigration legislation -- you have to look at that and say, "We're not serious."

I just did, as you know, a novel on the second world war. I was out recently at Pearl Harbor and looking at the Missouri and looking at the Arizona, and they're sitting right next to each other. And the Missouri was our answer to Pearl Harbor.

We built an entire navy. We built an entire air force. We created the atomic bomb. We mobilized 16.5 million people in uniform. We won the entire war in less than four years.

Now, you look at the ruthlessness, the aggressiveness, the energy that we put into that war, and here we are 5.5 years after 9/11, and the fact is I would argue we're losing the war around the world with Islamist extremists and they are, in fact, gaining ground.

WALLACE: Let's talk about what may be the biggest problem that conservatives have right now with President Bush, and that is his support for comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Bush said this week that critics like yourself on the right are misrepresenting the plan. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: If you want to scare the American people, what you say is, "The bill is an amnesty bill." It's not an amnesty bill. That's empty political rhetoric trying to frighten our fellow citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Empty rhetoric trying to frighten the American people. Your response?

GINGRICH: Well, the bill explicitly grandfathers in somewhere between 10 million and 20 million people. We don't know the number because the government has no idea how many there are -- again, an example of incompetence.

The government doesn't know within a million how many people will be grandfathered in.

They're all, in effect, made permanent temporary workers the day the bill is signed. They have to go through one day of filling out a form. There is zero possibility the federal government will be able to process those forms.

And it's simply, I think, disingenuous. I'm assuming that the president and his staff understand what this bill does. And if they do, what the president said is disingenuous.

This bill, in effect, grandfathers somewhere between 12 million and 20 million people. We don't know who they are. It would have grandfathered the three terrorists in New Jersey.

WALLACE: But some conservatives say, "You know, there's a lot to like in this bill." There is tougher border enforcement in the bill. Let me just ask the question. There is tougher border enforcement in the bill -- that it creates a temporary guest worker program, that it puts an end to the chain migration of families in.

Isn't a bill with those features better than no bill at all?

GINGRICH: No, because this bill creates a brand new system that gives between 10 million and 20 million people guaranteed access to the United States without any recourse.

I was in Dallas doing a book signing two weeks ago, and a federal prosecutor walked up to me, career bureaucrat, civil servant, not a political appointee, and said to me, with anger, the most effective tool they have in dealing with illegal gang members is deportation.

This bill would, in effect, guarantee 30,000 illegal gang members that they can stay in the U.S. by the following. You sign a paper that says I promise not to be in the gang anymore. Now, that is so out of touch with reality.

WALLACE: But the Bush administration -- and I know Commerce Secretary Gutierrez has said this, "Look, we're not going to deport 12 million to 20 million people."

GINGRICH: No.

WALLACE: Let me finish. It isn't going to happen. And so as a result, if you do nothing, if you stay with the system you have now, the 12 million people are going to stay here, and what you have is amnesty. It's just silent amnesty.

GINGRICH: Yes, but what they're saying, in effect, is we either have to do nothing or we have to do something fairly dumb.

Now, why can't we do a series of small, smart steps? Why couldn't they -- I'll give you another example. Democratic Governor Napolitano of Arizona wrote a column this week pointing out that they are cutting the number of National Guard supporting the border before they have actually met their goals at the border.

So the average American looks up and says, "Why can't you control the border tomorrow morning? Why can't you enforce the law?" I mean, you don't have to deport anybody. All you have to say is to American businesses, who are American citizens, "Obey American law or face economic penalties."

Now, the morning you do that, you begin to dry up the market for hiring people illegally.

Why couldn't you make sure that there was a fairly easy way to verify somebody was legally here so that, as rapidly as you do with an automatic teller machine with your credit card, you're able to know that you're hiring somebody legally?

Those things drive people -- you don't have to deport anybody. All you have to do is make it dramatically harder to get in the U.S. and dramatically harder to hire people illegally.

WALLACE: Let's turn to 2008. You suggest that the only way that a Republican in this current political climate is going to win the presidency is to run against President Bush the same way that Nicolas Sarkozy was just elected president of France running against the incumbent, Jacques Chirac, even though he was a member of Chirac's cabinet.

Do you really think the Republicans will nominate someone who is running against George W. Bush?

GINGRICH: No, I don't think you need to run -- in fact, I don't think you should run against President Bush. I think most of his major decisions have been very sincere, and most of them are decisions the average American actually would endorse.

I think what you do have to do is run in favor of radically changing Washington and radically changing government. And I think that all you have to do is look at the examples I've given you today where the government simply fails.

Look at New Orleans today and you can't possibly believe this is an effective federal program. And so I think...

WALLACE: But if you're not running against the president, you're certainly running against his record.

GINGRICH: Well, what Sarkozy said was that without -- he never attacked President Chirac. He never took him on at all. He said simply, "We have to have dramatically bigger changes."

I think the average American will tell you they want Washington changed very dramatically, and that doesn't always involve the president.

Eighty-two percent of the country believes we ought to have a dramatic change in earmarks in the Congress, for example. And I think 85 percent of the country believes English ought to be the official language of government. Those are not necessarily involving President Bush.

WALLACE: We've got a couple of minutes left. Fred Thompson all but announced this week that he is running for president. Are you satisfied with his credentials? Does the Republican field now have a true conservative?

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, there are several candidates who each bring their own unique strengths to this, and in terms of offering a very bold, dramatic vision, Governor Romney would be capable of it. I think Mayor Giuliani would be capable of it. I think Fred Thompson will be capable of it.

These are solid people. And over the next three months or four months, we'll see what they do. My entire focus -- despite Tony Snow's comment, my entire focus is on creating a solutions day on September 27th.

I'm going to be giving a speech at the American Enterprise Institute this Friday outlining the scale of change I'm describing. It is not pro- or anti-Bush. It is beyond the current presidency.

And it argues that in order for us to be effective, in order for us to apply the World War II standard of effectiveness, we have to have very relentless, dramatic change in American government.

WALLACE: Let me ask you, because the question a lot of people are asking is, "Is there still room for Newt Gingrich in the race?" You have been dropping a lot of hints recently, and let's put them up on the screen.

Two weeks ago, you said, "It is a great possibility" that you'll run. Then a few days ago, you said, "I'll probably end up running."

Mr. Speaker, it sure sounds like you want to get in this race.

GINGRICH: Well, I think when you see that there's nobody yet -- and we're giving all of our material from American Solutions to every candidate in both parties.

But when you look at -- for example, all the Democrats' proposals on health care sadly represent more big government, more bureaucracy, more Washington controls, which is a denial of the whole underlying reality of...

WALLACE: Right. I wouldn't expect the Democrats to adopt your strategy, but how about the Republicans?

GINGRICH: I would have to say that you have to look -- and I'm waiting -- I mean, I'm not out here trying to crowd anybody on anything. I'm simply suggesting we need to have some very bold proposals for fundamental change, and so far I don't see much of that.

I see some encouraging signs, but I think the key question is, is somebody prepared to stand up and say that the American people deserve fundamental change in Washington, and to outline a set of those fundamental changes that are big enough that people look up and say, "That's what I want."

WALLACE: And if you don't see that, you're getting in?

GINGRICH: I think after September 29th -- we're going to have two days of workshops on September 27th on the Internet and again on September 29th, available to anybody in the country, Democrat, Republican, independent.

After those two days of solutions-oriented approach, I'll start looking at it, you know, on September 30th.

WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, come on back and tell us what you decide.

GINGRICH: All right.

WALLACE: Thank you, as always, for coming in.

And we also want to note that you have a new book out, which you mentioned -- you can see it up there on the screen -- called "Pearl Harbor", a historical novel. And good luck with that, sir.

GINGRICH: Thank you.

WALLACE: Up next, the surge in Iraq five months later. We'll get a firsthand progress report from the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: It's been five months since President Bush announced his troop surge plan to secure Baghdad. For a progress report and to find out how diplomatic talks went this week with Iran, we turn now to the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who joins us from Baghdad.

Mr. Ambassador, let's start with the military situation. As you know all too well, May was the third deadliest month for U.S. forces since the war began. Civilian deaths across Iraq are up.

And reportedly, the number of sectarian killings in Baghdad are rising, although not clearly up to pre-surge levels. Given all of that, can you honestly say that the surge in Baghdad is working?

RYAN CROCKER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: We said from the beginning, when the president announced this policy in January, that it would take some time to see results.

We're still just reaching full strength with the additional troops coming in for the surge. The last units will close this month. So it's really just starting in June that we'll have our full force in the effort.

We've also said from the beginning this was going to be a hard fight, and it is. We're moving into areas we haven't been before, and we're holding on to them. So there will be good days, good weeks, and not-so- good weeks.

We just have to stay steady on this and try and make a difference on the ground.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk about staying steady. General Ricardo Sanchez, who was, of course, the first -- or one of the early U.S. commanders on the ground leading the coalition in Iraq, is in the papers today saying that you can't hope for victory anymore, the best you can do is stave off defeat.

Your reaction, sir. CROCKER: I think these words get thrown around a little bit loosely. What we're trying to do here is stabilize a security situation, particularly in Baghdad, to allow a political process some time and space to work.

That's what the goal is here, to allow the Iraqis to get a hold of their own affairs, their own country, to have the breathing space to make some tough political compromises and decisions.

I think it's far too soon to say how that will go. Again, we've got to have the time to get the troops on the ground, time for the surge to make a difference on the streets, and then time for this political process to unfold.

So I think it's just way premature to be talking in terms of victory or defeat.

WALLACE: Ambassador, you talk about time and premature, but as you know, the talk here in Washington from Republicans as well as Democrats is that the key to continued support for our efforts in Iraq is what you and General Petraeus tell officials when you come back here in September.

Now, the number two commander of U.S. forces, General Odierno, says that that may be too soon to know whether political and military efforts are going to succeed, whether the surge is working. Is September a realistic deadline, or are you going to need more time?

CROCKER: Well, General Petraeus and I are both fond of saying that there are two times out there, two clocks, an Iraqi clock and an American clock, and the American clock is running quite a bit faster than the Iraqi one.

In September, he and I will be going back to Washington. We will make an assessment. What we say obviously will depend on how we evaluate circumstances at the time. We will clearly have something to say.

The long-term process leading to what we all hope is eventual stabilization, security and political accommodation may well, indeed -- it will take a lot longer than September.

What we all hope to be able to point to by September are signs that the general direction is right.

WALLACE: As you say, security is not an end in itself, that you're basically trying to buy time for political reform.

There are reports that you and other top U.S. officials have growing doubts about the effectiveness of the Iraqi government.

How much confidence do you have that by September that the Iraqi government will be able to meet benchmarks like passing an oil revenue sharing bill, holding local elections and putting more Sunnis into the government?

CROCKER: The intentions of the Iraqi government, I think, are clear. This government wants to succeed. It wants Iraq to succeed.

Prime Minister Maliki has been reaching out to other communities represented within the government -- a meeting with the presidential council, with the Political Council for National Security, for example.

Right now, the Iraqis are engaged in some intensive negotiations on the hydrocarbon laws. They've made a lot of progress over the last week.

Clearly, they have a great distance to go, but I've been encouraged by the fact that all parties, all communities, are willing to engage in the process to sit down around a table and try to work through issues to a successful conclusion and compromise.

WALLACE: But if I may...

CROCKER: None of this is easy.

WALLACE: If I may press the question, sir, how confident are you that you're going to be able to meet the September benchmarks, number one?

And number two, there had been a lot of talk for a while that the Iraqi parliament might take a two-month recess, might take the summer off. Is that talk dead now?

CROCKER: Well, with respect to the recess, we've been in touch, of course, with the government at various levels and in direct touch with the council of representatives, and what I am being told from council members, from the government, is that the council understands its responsibilities, and if there is work to be done, they intend to be here to do it, and I think that's very important.

WALLACE: You sat down with Iran's ambassador to Iraq in Baghdad this past week. It was the first official high-level talks between our two nations in almost 30 years.

Mr. Ambassador, what makes you think that Iran has any help -- or any interest in helping stabilize Iraq?

CROCKER: Well, I think that's for the Iranians to demonstrate, whether they have that interest and whether their actions will move in that direction or not.

What I heard in those talks was a clear statement from the Iranians that they seek a stable, secure, democratic Iraq that does not threaten its neighbors and is able to control its own territory. That's a good policy. It's very similar to ours.

The problem is what the Iranians are doing on the ground. Those were the points I pressed with my Iranian colleague.

The basic message we had for them is they need to start doing things differently on the ground to bring their practice into line with their stated policy. WALLACE: Well, let me ask you...

CROCKER: We'll just have to see if they do that.

WALLACE: ... about that, Mr. Ambassador. Has there been any sign since your talks that Iran has stopped training and equipping our enemies?

CROCKER: The talks were just six days ago, of course, and I think it would be a little bit of time before we would see any clear sign on the ground of a difference in approach. But the short answer is as of today, no, I don't see any difference.

WALLACE: Iraqi President Talabani says that U.S. troops, officials, are trying to reach out to insurgents to get them to lay down their arms.

Do you really think that some of these groups are now finally ready to stop fighting?

CROCKER: What we've seen out in Anbar province to the west clearly demonstrates that tribes and others that at one point sided with, or at least were sympathetic to, Al Qaida very definitely have changed their position and are now supporting Iraqi and coalition efforts against Al Qaida.

So yes, it is happening. It has happened on a fairly significant scale. And obviously, it's in our interest and Iraq's interest to do everything we can to encourage more of that kind of thing.

WALLACE: Now, President Talabani says the Iraqis are prepared to give amnesty to some of these groups. Would the U.S. support amnesty for groups that had attacked American forces?

CROCKER: Again, as part of a political reconciliation process, amnesty can be very important.

It can also be important in this particular context as we seek to draw as many elements as we can away from the fight with us against us and into the fight against a common enemy, Al Qaida.

Now, in terms of individual cases involving people who have American blood on their hands, that is something we have to consider very carefully.

WALLACE: Mr. Ambassador, finally -- and we have less than a minute left -- there was an unbelievable security breach this week, I'm sure you're aware of, when the architects of the massive new U.S. embassy in Baghdad put detailed plans for the project on the Internet.

How worried are you that this may compromise security for the U.S. embassy, which is supposed to open in September?

CROCKER: Well, it's clearly a problem. We have enough challenges out here, both the military and the civilian elements of our government, without having that kind of thing taking place back home.

My understanding is that it was pulled very quickly off the Web site when we became aware of it, and we certainly hope that it will not have any lasting impact on our security.

WALLACE: Mr. Ambassador, we want to thank you so much for talking with us today. And please stay safe, sir.

CROCKER: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: Coming up, our Sunday gang on how former Senator Fred Thompson changes the already crowded Republican presidential race. Some answers in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRED THOMPSON, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: There's a desire for someone to come in and run a different kind of campaign and come with a different message and address some of the issues that our country's facing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: And former Senator Fred Thompson clearly thinks he's the man to run that different kind of campaign.

And it's panel time now for Brit Hume, Washington managing editor of Fox News, and Fox News contributors Nina Easton of Fortune magazine, Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams from National Public Radio.

So, Fred Thompson. Before we get to the effect that he's going to have on the other frontrunners, let's talk about him.

Brit, how reliable and strong a conservative and how effective a politician?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS WASHINGTON MANAGING EDITOR: Well, I think he had kind of a mixed record in the Senate. And he's a man who always seemed somewhat frustrated, bored by the Senate.

I particularly remember an investigation that occurred after the Clinton-Dole campaign. We were new here at Fox News, and we carried a lot of the hearings live.

It was in the campaign finance alleged irregularities with money supposedly seeping into the American political campaign of Bill Clinton from Chinese sources and so on. It was pretty juicy stuff. It looked like a very big deal.

Fred Thompson was the chairman of the investigating committee and it went absolutely nowhere. He was effectively buffaloed in that investigation by none other than John Glenn, who is a wonderful man, but not somebody you would normally think capable of being a real partisan spear-chucker who could undo an investigation.

So it didn't go very well, and I think Fred Thompson has acknowledged since then that it wasn't his finest hour. But I think at the moment, Chris, it's sort of the idea of Fred Thompson -- very attractive and a very likable guy -- that is what's running this. He's built expectations up, though, by this anticipation of when or whether he'll get in. They're over the moon -- very hard for him to live up to them.

WALLACE: Well, let's talk reality, Nina. I mean, the two knocks -- and Brit referred to them -- are, one, that he did not have the most distinguished record as a senator and, two, that he may not be the hardest worker in the political fields.

How legitimate do you think those two knocks are?

NINA EASTON, FORTUNE MAGAZINE: I think those are extremely legitimate. I mean, he's an actor. He understands the importance of good timing. And what better timing than this weekend, with frustration among conservatives at a high, to jump into this race?

He's going to be posing himself very much as an anti-Washington populist, very much like when he drove his red pickup around the state in 1994 in his Senate race. He's good at that sensibility.

There's going to be a lot of talk about his Reaganesque appeal. Ronald Reagan, however, ran a state.

And when you look at Fred Thompson and the three top contenders that he'll be up against, all of whom have done something very, very substantial and concrete -- and the question will keep coming up about Senator Thompson, "What have you done?"

WALLACE: Bill, I know that The Weekly Standard has done a lot of reporting on Thompson and what kind of a campaign that he's putting together. What do you know?

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: It's pretty impressive, you know, and all these people who think, "Well, he's just this laid-back guy, just kind of testing the waters, flattered by all this attention," -- they have systematically over the last two months, three months, four months, beneath the radar screen, brought in serious advisers, serious political people.

Mary Matalin, who knows an awful lot about Republican presidential politics, is working with them. Larry Lindsay, who was George Bush's adviser on economics in the 2000 campaign, crafted the supply-side tax cuts, will be with Fred Thompson -- Dave McIntosh, former congressman from Indiana, worked with me in the Quayle team in the first Bush administration, but despite that is a very bright guy and a very able guy. I think he'll be doing domestic policy with them.

It's an impressive operation. Fred Thompson knows what he's doing and he will be formidable.

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: Well, I mean, it's just to me an indication that the Republicans don't have a candidate, and so everybody's kind of desperate and looking around, and Fred Thompson's well known. Even, you know, my wife, who doesn't watch much politics, knows him from "Law & Order," but asked me the other day, "Well, what was he like as a senator?" And I said, "Well, you know, I don't think that anyone exactly thought that Fred Thompson was setting the house on fire."

But he's a nice guy, wonderful guy. Now he's married. He's settled down. So a lot of the playboy stuff goes away. And the idea is well, you know, if you look at his numbers, even in this recent Washington Post poll, he's better than Mitt Romney. And Mitt Romney, obviously, has spent a lot of money.

And so he has name I.D. Hopefully, he's raising money. There's no indication of whether or not he's raised a substantial funds, but with Giuliani sagging in the polls -- still leading, but sagging in the polls, it looks like there might be some kind of celebrity fascination with Fred Thompson.

WALLACE: Which brings us to the question of what he does to the field. I have to say, and this says something about us, that we do this -- a bunch of us at "Fox News Sunday" sat around the other day and were going over who does he help, who does he hurt in the field, especially the frontrunners, McCain, Giuliani and Romney.

Brit, your thoughts.

HUME: Well, I think it's hard to say whom he helps. And of course, you have the other wildcard factor, of course.

There's a potential rival on the scene in Newt Gingrich, who, you know, has a -- a lot of people know who he is, and he certainly is a conservative, a man of ideas, although it sounded on this program today as if he was going to try to run for president on the Michael Dukakis platform of making government work better, saying it's about competence and not much else. But I'm sure he'll have more to say about that.

WALLACE: Whew. All right, a harsh note to follow.

Nina, what do you think he does to the race, and who do you think he helps and hurts?

EASTON: The conventional short-term wisdom is that it hurts Mitt Romney...

WALLACE: Why?

EASTON: ... because he's a second-tier candidate. You look in the polls, he's right there about 10 percent, 10 percent with Romney. Romney's a money raising machine, however. He's already up on air in Iowa.

And I disagree about whether his campaign organization is going to be that formidable. I think it's -- Newt Gingrich is going to be the real chapter in this race, because he does have an organization. He's got the ground works of an organization. I think it was clear from today he's getting in. And I think -- and if you go out on the campaign trail among GOP activists, not necessarily in the south where I think Fred Thompson is popular, but elsewhere, Newt Gingrich is hot.

KRISTOL: Newt Gingrich can't be elected, and Newt Gingrich is a very articulate guy, and if Fred Thompson is smart, and he is smart, he's calling Newt Gingrich right now and saying, "I saw you on Fox. That was great. I want your help on the campaign."

And I predict this. Newt Gingrich will end up endorsing Fred Thompson in October or November. Thompson and Romney will battle to be the conservative alternative to Giuliani.

I think the McCain campaign, unfortunately, is in deep trouble. Thompson will be...

WALLACE: Why is McCain in deep trouble, because of Thompson or just because of himself?

KRISTOL: Well, because he was the frontrunner, and now he's 15 percent to 2- percent in the polls, and it's tough -- he had trouble raising money as the frontrunner. He's really going to have trouble raising money in June now at 20 percent, with Thompson coming in and really very similar to McCain in terms of positions.

So I think McCain has a rough month or two ahead. Thompson has great opportunity. Romney will stay in and is formidable. And that will be the race.

WALLACE: Juan, let me ask you -- I mean, let me play my game. This is what I said in our "Fox News Sunday" meeting. It would seem to me that you now have got Thompson, Gingrich if he gets in, Romney, even, you could argue, McCain all vying to be the true conservative in the race. It seems to me it helps Giuliani.

WILLIAMS: Well, it does help Giuliani because it moves away on the social factors, I mean, and what Giuliani is able to do is to really focus in on what is it that you can sort of galvanize the largest percentage of the conservative base on, and that is the war in Iraq.

And you can say, "Listen, we believe that we should be in Iraq. We have a different position than the Democrats have been taking." Republicans, like it or not, own this war right now and own the policy.

So to say that, I think, is the one thing that could be helpful here. I mean, it's been a rough week. We know about the large number of debts. We know about the statement by Lieutenant General Sanchez that the best you can hope here is to stave off defeat, not victory.

So I think that lots of people have to speak very clearly on that issue. That's the hook that Giuliani has had with his social sort of moderate or liberalism. That's the difference. And I think that's how you differentiate. That's what they need to do, differentiate themselves from Bush in a way other than on the war in Iraq.

HUME: What about McCain? McCain is just as Bill described it in terms of his position in the race in the national polls, but the polls out most recently -- Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, three critical early states -- he's leading in all three places.

And of course, you know, if you think about it, those are the things that really matter the most.

Now, whether that lead will hold or whether the national poll position will simply dry up his money to the point where he can't effectively campaign remains to be seen. But he's not in -- I mean, don't count him out yet.

WALLACE: It is a great race. As we were saying in our "Fox News Sunday" meeting, for a Sunday talk show, business is good.

All right, we have to take a break here. But coming up, the conservative backlash against President Bush and his immigration reform plan. Will the bill survive? And how big is the split in the grand old party? Our panel tackles that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: On this day in 1965, Gemini IV astronaut Ed White became the first American to walk in space. White spent 23 minutes floating 123 miles above the Earth tethered to the Gemini spacecraft.

Stay tuned for more panel and our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it. You can use it to frighten people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, TALK SHOW HOST: There are people who are saying, "I've had it. I'm through. I'm through defending the guy. This is the last straw because he's attacking me here."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That was just a taste of the split among conservatives this week with President Bush defending immigration reform and Rush Limbaugh describing it as a last straw.

And we're back now with Brit, Nina, Bill and Juan.

So in his infinite wisdom, President Bush decided -- and you're already shaking your head, Brit -- to go after his conservative base in a couple of speeches this week as a way of pushing through immigration reform.

Was that a smart tactic or was it exactly the wrong thing to do?

HUME: The latter. It was ridiculously stupid. He's not a big factor on this bill. Now, there may come a time when, you know, he can get on the phone to certain members and make a difference.

But as somebody who is going to go out and sway the public on this, he's not the spokesman you want. It really isn't even his bill. It was worked out on the Hill.

And it's a very delicate situation up there, and to have him out saying things that insult important elements of his conservative base is about as dumb as it gets.

WALLACE: Do you agree with that?

EASTON: Well, I agree. I mean, I think you can make a case for the bill, and he doesn't necessarily have to stay out of the debate.

He could have made a case about the enforcement measures in the bill, employer enforcement measures in particular, border enforcement. He could have made that without attacking his base.

He was never going to win over the crowd who believes that this is amnesty. He's never going to win them over.

WALLACE: That's a lot of people.

EASTON: But you didn't -- and they believe that they have a majority of not just the public, but a majority of Republicans behind them. Polls show that they support -- but you don't go out and, you know, as Laura Ingram said last week, step on a hornet's nest.

And I think what the effect of this is -- it's going to channel that anger probably into the House, where you see a congressman like Mike Pence of Indiana who's going to take this and run with it and try to turn that bill into an anti-amnesty bill or some sort of bill in which illegal immigrants have to go home before they can begin to qualify for legal status.

KRISTOL: You know, if this bill had gone the way normal bills do -- they go through committees. There are hearings.

WALLACE: We're now going to hear the process argument again?

KRISTOL: I know it's silly, but look. There's a reason there's a process like this, which is people get to offer amendments and improve the bill and make arguments for and against these amendments. This thing was sprung on everyone two weeks ago.

WALLACE: But it will have been on the Senate floor for two weeks.

KRISTOL: It will, and the more one looks at it substantively -- and I say this as someone who is a liberal on immigration -- the more one looks at it substantively, the more problems one sees.

And I'm still waiting for the substantive defense of the bill. Where is the serious -- Fred Barnes has done the best job of it in our magazine.

But shouldn't the president or some senator who's for the bill actually lay out a serious argument for the bill and answer the responsible critics and not charge them with being nativists or hating immigrants or anything like that?

A lot of people like me who are pretty liberal on immigration are very, very doubtful about this bill. And honestly, I don't think the arguments...

HUME: What is it that you don't like about it?

KRISTOL: Well, the fact that right away they get this temporary "Z" visa which they can keep forever. There's no reason that these people -- you're making all the current illegal immigrants permanently residents here, and I think you're inviting an awful lot more illegals in without having border security.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: But I'm not going to ask you this question. Actually, I want to ask Bill this, because we heard Gingrich's disaffection with the White House today. We heard Rush Limbaugh's disaffection.

And Gingrich referred to Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speech writer, who wrote a very tough column in the Wall Street Journal this week in which she basically broke with George W. Bush.

And let's put it up on the screen. "This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place."

Then going on to criticize Bush policies on spending, government, immigration and the mishandling of Iraq, she says this about the president, "He was disciplined and often daring but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering."

Bill, how legitimate is the criticism, and how widespread is that feeling among conservatives now?

KRISTOL: I think there's disagreement with the president on certain issues and criticism of certain issues.

I don't think people feel he was obliged to agree with every conservative on every policy. He was always liberal on immigration, and he always differed with conservatives on some things like education policy, No Child Left Behind.

He's entitled to push his views. He didn't destroy the Republican Party. Right now, Fred Thompson is running even with Hillary Clinton in the polls.

I think Peggy overstates the case, but I do agree that, you know, the president isn't as popular as he was a couple years ago.

WILLIAMS: Well, you know, the first thing is that the president has had a key role in negotiating this bill. It is, in part, his bill. I mean, two years ago it was his bill. It's his bill. He's had people directly involved in the negotiations on the Hill.

The second thing is I think there is logic to what he says. I think there are people out there who don't want to do what's best for America. That's what he said. That's what he believes. That came from his heart. That was not scripted.

And what he's saying is there are people out there who differ with 66 percent of the Republican base and yet their voices are the loudest voices in the room. They're shrill, and they're making the immigrants out to be, you know, aliens attacking, coming from space. They're going to -- what did Newt Gingrich say? They're going to be gang members. They're going to do this -- you know, the whole -- it goes away from the notion that these are people who are hard- working people who come here to establish families.

You said why don't we make a case...

KRISTOL: What about the gang members? What about the gang members? The bill allows you to sign a piece of paper saying I'll no longer be a gang member, and then you're legalized.

Previous gang membership as an illegal immigrant here does not disqualify you from getting the "Z" visa.

WILLIAMS: Let me ask you...

KRISTOL: Do you think that substantively -- is that substantively the right...

WILLIAMS: Let me ask you a simple question. Do you think we should kick out the gang members who are already Americans?

KRISTOL: Yes. Yes. We should kick out...

WILLIAMS: Oh, so we should kick out American citizens because they go into gangs?

KRISTOL: No, these are illegal immigrants. These are illegal immigrants. That's why they're affected by the bill.

WILLIAMS: Well, I'm saying what a ridiculous thing...

KRISTOL: Do you think illegal immigrants who have been gang members should be permitted to become citizens?

WILLIAMS: Bill, this is like the argument the other day about if someone is a drunk driver and illegal -- we have our own American gang members, illegal drunk drivers, all this.

This is a real distraction from the business of dealing with illegal immigration in this country, securing the borders, taking legitimate steps to try to get under control what is an out-of-control problem, immigration in this country.

You ask the president to make a comprehensive, legitimate statement. The president says these people are not looking at what's best for America. Can there be any doubt about that?

WALLACE: All right. Let me just pretend to be the moderator controlling this debate.

Brit, I want to ask you, what did you think of what Peggy Noonan said in her column?

HUME: I this it was -- I adore Peggy, but the column was wildly overstated. I mean, let's look at the core reality here. The critical event of this presidency was September 11th, 2001. If someone had said to you on that day or in the months thereafter, fast-forward 5.5 years and you will have no further attacks on American soil, I don't think many people would have believed that, and they sure would have taken it.

And someone also said, you know, the economy is going be hit hard, we'll have a recession in the wake of this. But the economy will be roaring along with 4.5 percent unemployment, and that will be the situation. No attacks, economy booming. People would have said, "What a great record."

So what is this really all about? In the end of the day, it's all about the thing that's made the president unpopular, which is unmistakably the Iraq war.

WALLACE: We're going to have to leave it there, panel. Thank you all. See you next week.

Time now for some mail about our interview last Sunday with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and his idea of replacing the income tax with a national sales tax.

Monica Verona writes, "Very impressive, articulate, genuine. Yes, let's give the IRS the pink slip. It's nothing more than legalized theft. And yes, hard-working people shouldn't be penalized for making money." But Gil Oberdas from Wisconsin sent this, "Huckabee wants to give more to the rich and rob more from the poor, more tax breaks, and then hide behind his conservative Christian label to utter moronic statements like there was no evolution."

Be sure to let us know your thoughts by e-mailing us at fns@foxnews.com.

Up next, our Power Player of the Week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: You're about to hear some very tough comments from a critic of Islam.

We understand some of you may find these opinions distressing, even bigoted. But whatever you think, it's a debate that can't be ignored. Here's our Power Player of the Week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Most of Muslim individuals who take the trouble to let me know what they think of me think I am a traitor, that I am an infidel, that I have sold out to the enemy.

WALLACE: Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a 37-year-old intellectual who is risking her life to deliver an explosive message, that there is something wrong with Islam.

You think there is something fundamentally violent, anti- democratic.

HIRSI ALI: Anti-Democratic, anti-human, hostile to women, hostile to gays and particularly hostile to Jews, and it's the mainstream Muslims, the 1.2 billion Muslim individuals, who should acknowledge all these things and try and change it.

WALLACE: And she doesn't stop there. Hirsi Ali says President Bush was wrong after 9/11 when he said the terrorists twisted and hijacked their religion.

HIRSI ALI: Islam divides human beings into Muslims and non- Muslims. If you are a non-Muslim, you should be told to become a Muslim or you should be attacked and killed.

WALLACE: Who is this firebrand? Hirsi Ali's life is her message. She grew up in Somalia, a fan of Nancy Drew mysteries who came to believe Muslim women were pious slaves.

At age 22, she was supposed to go to Canada for an arranged marriage but on the way sought asylum in Holland.

HIRSI ALI: I did not want to repeat the same life cycle as my mother and all these other women I had seen who had no control of their lives.

WALLACE: She became an activist, speaking out for Muslim women, and eventually was elected to the Dutch parliament.

But in 2004, she took her boldest step, helping to write "Submission," a documentary in which passages from the Koran about the subordination of women are painted on bodies.

The film's director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered, his throat slit, a note threatening Hirsi Ali stuck to his chest.

HIRSI ALI: Devastation, sadness, anger. Just powerless.

WALLACE: But she is anything but powerless. Hirsi Ali moved to Washington last September, and her autobiography, "Infidel," has become a best-seller.

HIRSI ALI: There's really nothing wrong with being an infidel, because infidel has now become equal to science, to progress, to humanity and to freedom.

WALLACE: So you wear it as a badge of honor.

HIRSI ALI: I wear it as a badge of honor.

WALLACE: Now she travels the U.S., lecturing and continuing to write, always surrounded by a heavy security guard, her message that Muslims must choose between the doctrines of Islam and human rights.

Do you feel in danger?

HIRSI ALI: Yeah, I feel in danger from those individuals who think they will go to heaven by killing me, by killing an apostate.

WALLACE: But you're not going to stop.

HIRSI ALI: No, I'm not going to stop. I'm going to be very careful. I love life. And I'm living it to the full, but I'm not going to stop.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: Hirsi Ali says what she finds most rewarding is when Muslims get in touch with her and say they have the same doubts about Islam and don't want to hate.

And that's it for today. Have a great week, and we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."

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