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December 28, 2007

McCain On "Hannity & Colmes"

Hannity & Colmes

LOWRY: Welcome back to HANNITY AND COLMES. I'm Rich Lowry, siting in for Sean Hannity tonight. Joining us now is GOP presidential hopeful John McCain. Senator, thanks for being with us. Congratulations on your extraordinary surge on the campaign trail. Let me jump right in and ask you about Pakistan. We have a president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, who is isolated politically, the best hope of U.S. policy, Benazir Bhutto, is dead, the new leader of the opposition, this guy, Sharif, is soft on Islamic extremism. Are there any good options now for U.S. policy, Senator McCain?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's obviously a very difficult situation, Rich. I would, first of all, make sure the nuclear arsenal is secure, and that there's no chance of it falling into extremists or terrorist organization hands in the worst case scenario. I know -- I agree with your scenario, but I think now that Musharraf has to play a key role in making sure the political process moves forward.

As you know, in Pakistan, political parties tend to coaless around individuals, rather than the way it works in the United States, so we're going to need a candidate from Benazir Bhutto's party. I would like to say that General Musharraf has done a lot of the things we asked him to do, including stepping down from head of the army, including setting these elections now. First, we have to calm the situation down, and then move forward with the political process.

And I would send my friend Secretary Gates over there to talk to them about how this whole thing is unwinding. And we cannot forget that the military always plays a very important role in anything that happens in Pakistan.

LOWRY: Senator, things are really heating up on the campaign trail. If you don't mind, I want to ask you a domestic policy question, a straight talk question, if you will. In retrospect, was it a mistake for you to vote against the Bush tax cuts?

MCCAIN: No, because I had significant tax cuts, and there was restraint of spending included in my proposal. I saw no restraint in spending. We presided over the greatest increase in the size of government since the Great Society. Spending went completely out of control. It's still out of control. Wasteful earmark spending is a disgrace, and it caused us to alienate our Republican base.

So these tax cuts need to be made permanent. Otherwise, they would have the effect of tax increases. But, look, if we had gotten spending under control, we'd be talking about more tax cuts today.

LOWRY: Senator, specifically on tax cuts, even those these tax cuts help the economy grow, the deficit, which you were concerned about at the time, has actually gone down. So if you had it to do over again, you still would still vote against the Bush tax cuts?

MCCAIN: Well, actually the deficit is still significant, but spending is out of control. Corruption is there in Washington because of the wasteful and earmark spending. I say that because we have former members of Congress now residing in federal prison. I fought against the earmark pork barrel spending. I've never received nor asked for one for my state in 24 years.

And I was in the Reagan Revolution with Phil Graham. I suggest you ask Phil Graham and Warren Rudman and those fiscal hawks about my clear record of being a fiscal conservative. And when our base heard about the Bridge to Nowhere, we lost our base, my friend. And I'll restore trust and confidence. And I'll make the tax cuts permanent. But I'll stop spending, so that Americans can have trust and confidence in their government again.

LOWRY: Senator, no one can question your credentials on fighting government waste and Phil Graham is a great fiscal conservative, and he's on your team. But you're saying you stick by your vote. It was the right thing to vote against the Bush tax cut?

MCCAIN: Yes, Rich, perhaps I'm speaking in a different language to you.

LOWRY: I'm persistent, if nothing else.

MCCAIN: -- as part of those tax cuts. As a part, I would have restrained spending. And if we would had restrained spending, as we should have, as part of that package, then we would be talking about further tax cuts today. And I want to add, these tax cuts must be made permanent. They must be made permanent.

COLMES: I keep telling Lowry the "National Review" should have endorsed McCain. They should have gone for McCain at the "National Review."

LOWRY: Well, the senator can't complain about too much, because he's been going up ever since we endorsed Mitt Romney.

COLMES: You endorse Romney, there's a McCain surge. Hey, welcome back to the show, senator. Nice to have you with us.

MCCAIN: Could I just say, I thank Rich and "National Review Online" for making me one of the three persons of the year. And I appreciate that.

COLMES: Thank you very much, senator. Back to the Musharraf issue, did the United States -- was there -- the United States make a mistake trying to broker a return of Bhutto to Pakistan, trying to broker Musharraf leaving the military post? Did that lead to the events of the last couple of days? Was that a foreign policy mistake on the part of the Bush administration?

MCCAIN: You know, I don't think so, Alan. I think this is a tragedy. I'd remind you that when Musharraf came to power, Pakistan was a failed state, and people applauded him bringing Pakistan from the brink of political chaos. I think it was the right thing to do, to try to move the political process forward. I am thinking he deserves credit for standing down as head of the military, for lifting martial law, for committing to this election.

You know, they've tried to kill Musharraf nine times, some of them very sophisticated military operations. And obviously, there was another attempt on the part of -- to assassination Benazir Bhutto. According to latest information, they were Taliban/al-Qaeda operatives. This is a tough situation, but I think we did the right thing by trying to move Pakistan towards the path of free elections and democracy. But I do not under-state the consequences of failure now if we don't get this situation under control.

COLMES: You're now in the sights of Mitt Romney, who's gone after you a bit. We just got a statement a few moments ago about an ad you're running. I know you've been running back and forth ads here. And now just as of a few minutes ago, Romney is saying, I've just seen the text of your ad, the McCain ad, and it's obviously of a very different nature. It's an attack ad. It attacks him personally. It's nasty. It's mean spirited.

That's how he's referring to what you're saying about him. What's your reaction?

MCCAIN: Well, my message is these campaigns are tough. If he had not initiated the attacks on me, we wouldn't have had to respond. And frankly, our ad is just quotes from the "Manchester Union Leader," the "Concord Monitor" and other statements by the media. I'm proud to have been endorsed by so many of the newspapers here and in Iowa and in Boston, Governor Romney's home town, both "The Globe" and "The Herald." I'm glad for their endorsements.

These campaigns are tough. We're not going to respond anymore, but we had to respond to this. We're running a positive campaign, and if there's any validation that we are surging, I think it's the attack ads that Governor Romney has made on me.

COLMES: You've got a very unusual endorsement from Joe Lieberman. Would you if -- were you to get the nomination, would your first choice for vice-president be Joe Lieberman?

MCCAIN: Thank you, Alan. I think that Joe Lieberman is a most wonderful, courageous -- one of the most wonderful and courageous people I've known, and proves the contradiction -- the adage about if you want a friend in Washington, go buy a dog. He's a friend of mine. I think that Joe has a great role to play, particularly in national security issues. But that's a decision that has to be held for the future. But I am very grateful for his support. And we will act in a bipartisan fashion for the good of the country.

COLMES: Senator, we thank you very much for your time. Thanks very much for being with us.

MCCAIN: Thanks for having me on, guys.

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