Face the Nation Transcripts April 19, 2015: Rubio, Manchin, O'Malley
(CBS News) -- Below is a transcript from the April 19, 2015 edition of Face the Nation. Guests included Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Joe Manchin, former Gov. Martin O'Malley, Dana Milbank, David Catanese, Nancy Cordes, John Dickerson and April Ryan.
And today on FACE THE NATION: It may seem a long way off to the rest of us, but the Republicans have descended on New Hampshire and campaign 2016 is off and running.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: When Hillary Clinton travels, there's going to be two planes, one for her entourage one for her baggage.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: Most of the huge Republican deal was there and, to the surprise of no one, Hillary Clinton was topic A.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hillary going to raise $2.5 billion, which -- that's lot of Chipotle, my friends.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: We will hear about that a lot more from Marco Rubio.
Then we will talk to former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, who may actually challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin will be here to talk politics and the latest on the Iran nuclear deal.
Plus, our panel and look back at the Oklahoma City bombing.
It's all ahead, because this is FACE THE NATION.
Good morning.
When we sat down with Marco Rubio at the Manchester Community College, he had choice words on Hillary Clinton, said, flatly, we may have to go to war with the Iranians to stop them from building a nuclear weapon. And he talked candidly about deciding to run against his friend and mentor Jeb Bush.
We started with a simple question. Why do you want to be president?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUBIO: I believe the country is living a historic moment. It's transitioning into this post-industrial era, an era of extraordinary opportunity.
Our ideas are now allowing our nation to fulfill its potential in this new century. I believe I have the ideas for the country. I believe I have the vision for the country. I believe I am positioned to help lead this country to this new American century.
I think the 21st century is going to be better than the 20th century. But there's some things we are going to have to do to make that happen.
SCHIEFFER: You said the other day that this election presents a generational choice about what kind of country we're going to be. Didn't we just do that?
RUBIO: Well, we -- I think Obama campaigned on some of those themes. Unfortunately, his ideas don't help achieve it. It's not just enough to have new ideas. They have to be good ideas.
SCHIEFFER: You're young. You're bright. You have been in the Senate, but not for a very long time. A lot of Republicans think the last time they chose somebody with that very same profile -- they didn't choose him -- but it didn't work out very well.
How do you convince your party that you're not you know who?
RUBIO: Well, first of all, I think there's a dramatic difference from President Obama and I and our experience.
I have -- actually the only candidate thinking about running for president that served at the local, state and federal level, served nine years in Florida legislature. I was the speaker of the House. I will have served a full term in the Senate. The presidency is a big job. And I'm prepared for that.
SCHIEFFER: Let's talk about immigration. You're Hispanic. You have a wonderful life story. You were part of that bipartisan group that put together an immigration reform bill. You voted for it and then, when you got a lot of heat from people in your own party, you walked away from it.
RUBIO: Well, that's not an accurate assessment.
What I'm saying to people is, we can't do it in a massive piece of legislation. And I know because I tried. We understand that we have to deal with 12 million human beings that are in this country that have been here for longer than a decade. We know we have to deal with this.
We're not prepared to deal with it until first you can prove to us this will never happen again.
SCHIEFFER: Well, if you became president, would you sign the bill that you put together into law?
RUBIO: Well, that's a hypothetical that will never happen.
What I would do if I was president, the first thing I would do is, I would ask Congress to pass a very specific bill that puts in place E-Verify, an entry-exit tracking to prevent visa overstays, and improve security on the border. Once we achieve that, step two would be, we would modernize our legal immigration system, less family- based, more merit-based.
And then the third step would be to pass the bill that goes to the 10 million people that are here, or 12 million that are here illegally. If they have been for longer than a decade, they have to pass background check, they have to learn English, they have to pay taxes, they have to pay a fine. And they would get a work permit.
And after a substantial period of time in that status, assuming they haven't violated any of the conditions of that status, they would be allowed to apply for legal residency, just like anybody else would, not a special process. And after you're a legal resident, after a number of years, by law, you're allowed to apply for citizenship.
It's a long process. It's a reasonable process. It's a fair process. But it has to happen in that order. And it begins with serious enforcement measures.
SCHIEFFER: Your friend, your mentor former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, you say you you're not running against him, but how can you not run against him?
RUBIO: I have a tremendous personal affection and admiration for him.
And my view of it is, there will be multiple people running. We're blessed as Republicans running. We have a strong field of quality people that are running. And I think the Democrats are struggling to find one. And we have eight or nine.
And I think we're going to be a better party for it. I think America is going to get a better president for it.
SCHIEFFER: Was that hard for you to decide, well, it looks like he's going to run, too, but I'm...
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: Well, it's a unique situation.
I don't think anyone could have envisioned it working this way. But there comes a point in time where if you have an opportunity to serve your country legitimately, a legitimate opportunity to serve your country as its highest office, especially someone like me that feels a tremendous debt to America, it's an opportunity I had to take seriously.
And I did. But at the end of the day, it won't change how I feel about Governor Bush. He will remain my friend and someone I admire, both personally and politically.
SCHIEFFER: Why would you be a better president than Hillary Clinton?
RUBIO: Well, it starts with, I believe a Clinton presidency, it would basically be another four years of Barack Obama.
To this point, I'm not seen her distinguish herself on a single issue from what the president is doing now. I think that is particularly true on foreign policy. We cannot ignore that she was the secretary of state during the first four years of the Obama presidency and has virtually no meaningful achievement to show for it.
On the contrary, whether it's the reset in Russia or our response to Benghazi or everything in between, there's -- the Obama foreign policy during the Clinton years especially as secretary of state have been a disaster for America. Today, our allies trust us less. Our enemies fear us less, and America has less influence in the world today than it did four to six years ago.
SCHIEFFER: What is the single most important issue, the biggest challenge in this campaign and for the next president? Is it foreign policy or is it domestic policy?
RUBIO: Well, I always -- on a federal perspective, it always begins with foreign policy, because the most important obligation of the federal government is to keep us safe.
And, today, we face threats from abroad that are multifaceted in comparison to what they were 10 or 15, 20 years ago. We face the risk of a rising China. We see the erosion of NATO's ability to blunt Putin's efforts to rewrite and relitigate the end of the Cold War in Europe.
And then we see the rise in the Middle East of both multiple radical jihadist groups, both ISIS, al Qaeda, and other affiliated groups. The world has multi -- it's a multifaceted threat.
SCHIEFFER: Do you think we're winning?
RUBIO: I don't think we're doing as well as we could be on any of these fronts.
SCHIEFFER: Can you, Senator, envision under any circumstances sending American ground forces back into the Middle East?
RUBIO: It's not the ideal outcome.
Certainly, there are circumstances hypothetically where that would happen. It isn't the first option, because it isn't the best option. The best option would be the combination of a Sunni-Arab combined army, Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians who confront a radical Sunni group on the ground and defeat them in combination with U.S. air support, U.S. logistical and intelligence support and embedded with some U.S. special operation forces.
That is the best option moving forward. In the absence of that, we have what we have now, which is we have outsourced the ground operation to Shia militias under the complete control of General Soleimani and the Revolutionary Guard of Iran. And they're not leaving when this is over. If ISIS is defeated, they will then become the predominant group on the ground. And you have just triggered a whole new era of Iranian influence over Iraq, but also the increase for sectarian violence in that region for years to come.
SCHIEFFER: And does that present a threat to the American homeland?
RUBIO: Absolutely.
To begin with, Iran's hegemonic ambitions present a threat to our homeland. Iran continues to develop long-range rockets. What are they -- they're not trying to put a man on the moon. The reason why they're developing intercontinental ballistic missiles is to hold it as a leverage point initially against Europe and ultimately against the United States.
SCHIEFFER: Where do you come down then on the negotiations with Iran on trying to limit their nuclear weapons?
RUBIO: I don't think they will be successful. They're leaving in place massive amounts of infrastructure.
Russia is going to provide anti-aircraft capabilities. The Chinese are going to build nuclear reactor capability, all of which is the basic infrastructure you need to weaponize that system.
SCHIEFFER: If you don't get a deal, what is the alternative? Do we have to go to war? Is it necessary to be absolutely certain they don't have a nuclear weapon or capability to build one?
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: Absolutely. And I think that the best way to have achieved that is to leave in place both the unilateral sanctions and the international sanctions.
You combine that with a very clear demarcation to the Iranian regime. And that is this. If you cross this threshold, you will face military action on the part of the United States. We don't want that to happen. But the risk of a nuclear Iran is so great that that option must be on the table.
SCHIEFFER: If it came to that, you would -- that would be an option that you would actually...
RUBIO: Absolutely.
SCHIEFFER: ... consider and use?
(CROSSTALK)
RUBIO: And let me tell you why. If we don't do it, someone else will. The Saudis are not going to sit there and watch Iran build a Shia bomb without a Sunni bomb. The Israelis are not going to sit there and watch a regime that calls for their destruction develop the capability to do so. But, again, we would hope to have avoided that point by severely limiting and sanctioning Iran for its nuclear ambitions, and quite frankly I think this deal could literally lead to increasing the prospects for war.
SCHIEFFER: But what you're saying here, we cannot let Iran become a nuclear power.
RUBIO: Absolutely.
SCHIEFFER: And we have to do whatever is necessary if that includes going to war with Iran?
RUBIO: Absolutely.
And, by the way, if Iran -- Iran doesn't need nuclear power, peaceful nuclear power. They're an oil-rich country. The only reason why they want enrichment and reprocessing capability is they want to one day be able to be nuclear threshold or nuclear possessed.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you. We're talking about things here on Earth. Let's talk about things above the Earth and the whole idea of climate change. You have said, if I'm correct, that humans are not responsible for climate change. Did you say that?
RUBIO: What I said is, humans are not responsible for climate change in the way some of these people out there are trying to make us believe, for the following reason.
I believe climate is changing because there's never been a moment where the climate is not changing. The question is, what percentage of that or what is due to human activity? If we do the things they want us to do, cap and trade, you name it, how much will that change the pace of climates change vs. how much will it cost to our economy?
Scientists can't tell us what impact it would have on reversing these changes. But I can tell you with certainty it would have a devastating impact on our economy.
SCHIEFFER: Talk a little bit about social issues. You have said you're against gay marriage. Do you think that homosexuality is a choice?
RUBIO: Well, first, it's not that I'm against gay marriage. I believe the definition of the institution of marriage should be between one man and one woman.
States have always regulated marriage. And if a state wants to have a different definition, you should petition the state legislature and have a political debate. I don't think courts should be making that decision. And I don't believe same-sex marriage is a constitutional right.
I also don't believe that your sexual preferences are a choice for the vast and enormous majority of people. And, in fact, the bottom line is that I believe that sexual preference is something that people are born with.
SCHIEFFER: Senator, we thank you.
RUBIO: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHIEFFER: Marco Rubio.
And now I want to give you the very latest on that tragic breaking news from overseas. A fishing boat carrying the estimated 700 migrants capsized in waters north of Libya overnight. These were people trying to get out of Libya. Rescue efforts are under way, but a U.N. official says they fear this is a tragedy of vast proportion.
CBS News, of course, will continue to follow this story.
But we want to get back to politics now and turn to former Democratic Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley, who has actually said he may challenge Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton, while all these Republicans were in New Hampshire, she was out in Iowa driving around in a little van out there.
Just first, are you going to do this? Are you going to challenge her for the Democratic nomination?
MARTIN O'MALLEY (D), FORMER MARYLAND GOVERNOR: Well, I'm very seriously considering that. And I will make up my mind, Bob, by the end of May.
SCHIEFFER: Why?
O'MALLEY: Because I believe that our country faces big challenges.
And I know that leadership is important, if we're going to turn these challenges into opportunities. I have 15 years of executive experience as a big city mayor and as a governor bringing people together to get things done. And I believe that I have the ideas that will help our country move forward to a time when our economy is actually working for all of us again, instead of wages declining.
SCHIEFFER: Well, are you going to run against her or are you going to run against Republicans? All the Republicans, it is pretty clear they're running against Hillary Clinton. Do you join in that group? Or do you have a different story to tell?
O'MALLEY: Yes, I think that the best campaigns are not campaigns that are against, but campaigns that are for.
In other words, look, our country is doing better than we were four years ago. We're creating jobs again. But the vast majority of us are working harder and falling behind. Wages are declining in the United States of America. I believe what we need to do in order to bring people together is to talk about the ideas, especially if we're going to be the party that actually leads America into the future.
SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you the same question I asked Marco Rubio. Why would you be a better president than Hillary Clinton?
O'MALLEY: Because of the experience that I can bring to this job, Bob, the seven years as the mayor of Baltimore, eight years as the governor of a state.
I guided our state through this recession, and I did so with results that actually mattered, the highest median income in the country, middle class that is upwardly mobile, greater participation, and fuller participation of my citizens in the economic, social, political life of our state, doing difficult things like passing marriage equality, passing the DREAM Act, doing commonsense things that allow new American immigrants to fully participate, pay their taxes, play by the rules, and take care of their families.
That is the inclusive America that I believe all of us want to move to.
SCHIEFFER: What do you think of way she launched her campaign? All these Republicans are up there making speeches, kind of doing it the old-fashioned way. She gets in this little van and drives all the way out there. She's given no interviews, as far as I can tell. She hasn't had a news conference. Can you get the nomination that way? And how will you do it?
O'MALLEY: Well, look, I will let others talk -- second-guess her strategies and tactics. And she can certainly defend herself. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Secretary Clinton.
I believe that the best way to campaign is one-on-one with people. You can't forge a new sort of consensus, you can't forge public opinion by following public opinion. And you have to engage with people in living room after living room, in luncheonettes and lunch counters. I think that is the best type of campaign is the one- on-one contact, where we actually talk about the better choices we need to make to get earnings to rise again.
SCHIEFFER: Do you think that having more candidates is good for the Democratic Party?
O'MALLEY: You mean like more than one?
SCHIEFFER: I sit here and look at this. Here is a party that won last two presidential elections. And yet it comes down to there seems to be this one candidate. Shouldn't there be more people out there? Shouldn't the party have -- why is there nobody but you? I don't mean this in a deprecating way towards you, but you seem to be the lone guy who is even thinking about challenging her right now.
O'MALLEY: Yes, I'm not sure why that is. But I think it would be an extreme poverty indeed if there weren't more than one person willing to compete for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. Look, this is the way I think it's supposed to work. I believe that if you have the executive experience, the ideas that can serve our nation well and the ability to govern, you should offer your candidacy and then let the people decide.
If we do that, then we can be the party that leads our country into the future. But we won't do it unless we offer ideas for the future and break with things like bad trade deals, the systematic deregulation of Wall Street that many Democrats were complicit in and helped get us into this mess.
SCHIEFFER: Governor, I want to thank you. I hope you will come back when you tell us what your decision is.
(CROSSTALK)
O'MALLEY: Thanks very, very much.
SCHIEFFER: Great to see you.
And we will be back in just a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: We're back now with West Virginia's Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.
And, Senator, I'm going to get away from the politics for just a minute and talk a little bit about what's going on with this proposed deal with Iran.
The supreme leader there says that we can't do inspections on military bases there. Senator Rubio said he doesn't think the deal is going to go through. I'm beginning to agree with him. I think it's going to be very difficult to get it done under these conditions. What's your take here?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D), WEST VIRGINIA: Bob, my take is that I would simply rather negotiate for peace and use all diplomacy than declare war.
If you look at history, where we are, 2003, they had 164 centrifuges. At that time, President Bush's administration took a hard-line stand. We wouldn't tolerate any. Fast-forward to today, they got 19,000. Since they started talking about a year-and-a-half ago, at least it's stopped from progressing. So, I don't make any bones about it. We don't trust Iran and they don't trust us. It's not about trust. It's about verifying.
SCHIEFFER: If you don't have inspections, real inspections, how can you really be sure?
MANCHIN: I have been told from all security meetings I have been in that we are having real inspections. They are in there. And they're seeing basically for the first time, the IAEA, they are able to be there. Those are the people with the expertise.
And to have Mr. Moniz, as far as Ernie Moniz, our secretary of energy, with his expertise, you have got to believe some of the people that have that ability to evaluate. But just going back into cocoon and saying we don't trust and walk away from this, I don't think there's a senator that doesn't want to be involved in this process.
I want to be. I have signed on to Menendez-Kirk, did not sign on to the Corker-Menendez. But I signed Menendez-Kirk, which basically says as of June the 30th, we will double down on sanctions if we didn't have a deal. Let the people that are skilled doing this do their job.
SCHIEFFER: Let's get back to politics here, if we can.
Do you think Hillary Clinton should have some competition? Would you like to see more serious Democrats in the race?
My question is, why aren't there more serious Democrats in the race?
MANCHIN: You know, Bob, I support Hillary Clinton. I know Hillary Clinton.
And I find her to be warm and engaging, compassionate and tough, all of the above. And I think people are finding that to be, people that engage. She's going to earn every vote. She's working for every vote that she can possibly get. She brings more experience to the table. She's been more on the front lines than any person, more experienced than any person we have at that level.
She knows these leaders around the world. With that being said, we have to have somebody that can hit the ground running. OK? And I don't know. There's lot of good people that are showing interest. There's lot of them on Republican side. We have -- on the Democrat, there will be more. I just personally believe that Hillary is best prepared to do the job for America.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this, because there's been a lot of talk back in your home state. People are saying you ought to come back there and run for governor.
I know you many times along the way here have been pretty discouraged about where things are going. Have you made up your mind what you're going to do with your own future?
MANCHIN: Bob, when Senator Byrd died, I had to make the toughest decision of my political life. At that time, I had to decide, should I try to run for Senate or stay in the governorship?
I was two years into my second term, a job that I loved very much, people know that, and it's a job that I thought we did pretty well. We brought people together, Democrats and Republicans. We put the state of West Virginia before our own politics. And we had some pretty good successes with that.
I thought maybe I could take that same can-do attitude, that same commonsense approach to Washington. I will be first to tell you I didn't think it would be this difficult. And it's been challenging. But I think we have made some inroads. I really believe that we have changed the whole process, to a certain extent, in the Senate to where we're willing to put our country first.
And I'm going to continue to fight for that. That's the reason I have made decision to stay in the United States Senate.
SCHIEFFER: You're going to stay and you're going to run for reelection?
MANCHIN: I'm going to stay and I will run for reelection. I want to serve the people of West Virginia to the best of my ability.
And I have said this. If my country does well, my state will do well. My purpose of being in the state Senate -- the United States Senate is to serve the people of West Virginia, the most patriotic people in the country.
So, I look forward to serving to the best of my ability. I know that the Senate is not working the way it was intended to and the way it's supposed to. But I'm not going to stop fighting to make it work.
SCHIEFFER: All right, Senator, thanks so much for coming and sharing that with us.
MANCHIN: Thank you.
SCHIEFFER: We will be right back with some personal thoughts.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: I have always said the great thing about being a reporter is the adventure, getting to talk to the people who make the news, seeing things with your own eyes that other people see only through eyes and lens of others.
And I have always said, the best training to be a reporter are or anything else is to work the police beat, because every story you cover is the worst moment in someone's life.
If you can learn to get the right information under those circumstances, you won't be fazed by the high and mighty and certainly not by on-the-make politicians and spin doctors, which is why I want to add a paragraph or two to the rash of stories lately about cops gone wrong.
This is not about them. This is about all the cops you don't read about. They deal much of the time with the dregs of our society, the schemers, murderers, those who prey on the weak. And most of the time, the police deal with them humanely and as they should.
What we overlook is just how difficult that can be sometimes. It's not easy to remain passive when a child beater looks you in the eye and tells you, you have to understand the kid was keeping him awake. It takes a lot of professional training and strong character not to respond in anger. I know, because I spent my early years listening to some of these awful people. Sometimes, I wanted to hit them myself.
I didn't. But it helped me understand how hard it is to do a cop's job right. As hard as it is, the great majority the cops still do just that.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: Some of our stations are leaving us now. But, for most of you, we will be right back with a lot more FACE THE NATION, including our political panel and a look back at the Oklahoma City bombing, which took place 20 years ago today. So, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: Welcome back to Face the Nation. Time now for our all-star political panel.
April Ryan the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Network, she's the author of "The Presidency in Black and White," Dana Milbank columnist for the Washington Post. We want to welcome David Catanese to Face the Nation. He is the senior politics writer for U.S. News and World Report. Plus we're joined by our own congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes, and her political director John Dickerson who has a great future I think, John Dickerson.
Well, it was all Republicans all the time up in New Hampshire this weekend. Hillary Clinton was out in Iowa. But she turned out to be topic A amongst all the Republicans. Here is just a sample.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R) TEXAS: As I was coming up I was a little bit startled because I could have sworn I saw Hillary's Scooby-Doo van outside. Then realize the it couldn't possibly be that, because I'm pretty sure y'all don't have any foreign nations paying speakers, right?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: This listening tour is something out of North Korea, which is -- would you like to meet the dear leader and ask him anything you would like? How does she get away with this? I don't know.
So, if you looking for something new, don't look to her. Look to the 35 people running for president on the Republican side.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: Well, John Dickerson you were out there, I was out there this week while Hillary Clinton was driving around in that little van out there in Iowa.
JOHN DICKERSON, CBS NEWS POLITICAL DIRECTOR: You couldn't even get all the Republican people running in a van, you'd need to rent like one of those airport shuttle buses or something there are so many of them.
One thing that was interesting about the Republicans is there's so many, but there was no favorite. There's nobody -- maybe Chris Christie doing this, but who is stacking all their chips on New Hampshire the way they have in the past. So it's a free wheeling, open contest.
And what's interesting is you see the different way voters are trying to categorize these folks. So on the one hand, they love a speaker like Ted Cruz because he's pure. He just speaks the old-time religion.
But then Frank Luntz today, a focus group with all the activists one morning -- Saturday morning. And he raise your hand if you want a senator in the White House. About three to five did.
Raise your hand if you want a governor. The entire room raised their hands.
So, they love a senator's rhetoric, but do they want the executive experience of a governor in the office? They are all figuring all that stuff out. Good thing they have ten months to do it.
SCHIEFFER: David, you have been tracking Ted Cruz among other things. And while they may not want a senator, he has to be taken seriously I think. And I didn't believe that at the beginning, but he raised $4 million the week after he announced his campaign. He has now raised about $30 million. Is he a serious candidate?
DAVID CATANESE, U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: He has to be taken seriously. And the Cruz campaign told me that since the end of that first quarter, they've already raised an additional million dollars. So, they believe they are in the top tier.
Look, most Republicans you talk to them they don't believe Ted Cruz will ultimately be the nominee, but when guy that has that type of money and he's also establishing the organization, and if you look at the polls, he did get a boomlet in Iowa and New Hampshire. And his campaign has said it has held that -- he's right now second place in New Hampshire.
Now will it hold in the ensuing months? That's too soon to tell. But right now you have to probably bump Ted Cruz up into that top tier at least for the time being.
SCHIEFFER: You, Nancy, were out in Iowa watching Hillary Clinton. You got to say it's a very unusual way to start a campaign here. I mean, she hasn't had a news conference.
NANCY CORDES, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT: And she's a very unusual candidate who doesn't necessarily need as much attention because she isn't in the airport shuttle, she's all by herself in the van. She probably wouldn't mind getting less attention rather than more.
The question that a lot of us had who are out on the trail this week was is this what the entire campaign is going to look like where she's kept at distance the from us, or was this just the first week, the roll out where they didn't want it marred by questions about Benghazi or emails. And is she going to open up as time goes on? We just don't know.
SCHIEFFER: Well, the question I asked Joe Manchin -- and I'd like to get your take on this, Dana, and also you, April, I mean, why is it that a party that's won last two elections some would say they won last three because lot of Democrats still think that Al Gore won that election. Why is it that party comes up with one candidate?
DANA MILBANK, WASHINGTON POST; I think it's extraordinary, Bob. And if you look at O'Malley, in that interview he was hardly challenging Hillary at all. And I think if he's going to sit there say I did good job as mayor of Baltimore, and I was a good governor, I mean he has as much chance of landing on the White House as if he's going in there in gyrocopter. It's not going to happen unless he takes her on more forcefully.
There is potentially a huge populist opening here for somebody, nobody is taking that Elizabeth Warren position. And I think it's extraordinary. They may not beat Hillary, but there's a real opportunity here. And I know you're going to have some free time after after this summer.
SCHIEFFER: If nominated I wouldn't run.
APRIL RYAN, AMERICAN URBAN RADIO NETWORK: But Bob, you know, there is a thing called the Clinton machine. And some of the Republicans have made mention of it, Huckabee even made mention of it. But there is such thing called the Clinton machine, I'm telling you, many of the Democrats are jumping on her bandwagon. I was talking all this week, they're saying, look, I'm telling you this now but I'm going to go -- I'm secretly right now, I'm going to go for Hillary. And she has got everyone -- I mean, you've got Erskine Bowles, the former chief of staff, Bill Clinton who said he's going to do everything in his power to get her to the presidency, to the Oval Office.
So, you have to remember that Hillary Clinton is a part that machine, the Bill Clinton machine.
But the Clinton folks are trying to figure out what works. And Martin O'Malley really is not a problem to them right now. There's really no other rock star that's out there right now.
CORDES: Although it's interesting, I ran into a lot of people, Democrats in Iowa who were in intrigued by Martin O'Malley and who had gone out to see him speak. And, you know, you've got to remember Iowa is a caucus state. And a caucus involves getting into a room and talking about your choices.
Well, if there aren't any choices, a caucus isn't a lot of fun. So they want more people in the race even if they support Hillary Clinton.
I talked to one guy who is in her announcement video who says I've been supporter of hers since fifth grade, but I want Martin O'Malley to run.
So, I think there is that hunger out there.
SCHIEFFER: But doesn't she share a problem with Jeb Bush? You know, I interviewed George W. Bush a month or so ago, and I said what do you think your brother's main problem is, what is his main challenge? And he said, me. He said he has got to make the campaign about him not about me. And that's why you're not going to see him make any big speeches out on the campaign trail, because he himself says the minute I make a speech then it's about me again. And he's got to keep them looking forward not backward.
Doesn't she have to do exactly the same thing? Keep people from looking in the rear view mirror and keep them focused out front. Can she do that?
MILBANK: Well, I think that's why you have that Jeb Bush boomlet when everybody said, wow, he's really going to be the 800 pound gorilla. And it didn't happen. It's not -- there's only one tier in the Republican race now. And nobody is really broken out.
And part of Jeb's problem was because who is going to run against Hillary? Well, you do need a fresh face there. And Hillary, of course, faces that same problem. The answer for that, though, is to get out there and talk to people. It's not sit in your Scooby-Doo van being chased by the media down a lawn in Iowa and refuse to get out there.
I think Democrats should want somebody in there challenging her. I think you see the Scooby-Doo van if you're a Democrat and you say "ruh roh."
CATANESE: It's only the first week. And I've got to say, I think Hillary Clinton did what she had to do, frankly. Whatever she did, the Republicans weren't going to like. But she went out -- some of the stuff is orchestrated. She went out and she laid some concerns among Democrats, some former Obama supporters, that you're going to have a voice in this Iowa campaign. She met privately and said, look, you're going to be able to play the music at the rallies, you're going to pick what we do, that's not how it was.
And I talked to a Democrat out there who said, are we going to be dictated by some New York consultant? And she reassured and she said, no. This is going to be an Iowa campaign. And that's different from last time. And this is only the first week.
Now, eventually she's going to have to have those impromptu moments. She's going to have to get the scrum with reporters like all these Republicans in did in Iowa -- or in New Hampshire this weekend, and take tough questions. That has to happen. But really this is only the first week.
SCHIEFFER: I think you can't...
CATANESE: I think we have to cut her some slack on the rollout.
SCHIEFFER: You cannot -- you absolutely cannot overstate that. I mean, I completely agree with you.
RYAN: And the Clinton folks are saying this, you know, we're going at it learning. It was the first week. And this week we're going to see her at a construction sites. We're going to see her at a community college, and they're trying to figure out really what works.
And beyond the Scooby-Doo van, the $60,000 Scooby-Doo van, you know, there are -- there are efforts to try to retweak it, to keep her, to keep the momentum going even if Martin O'Malley, whomever else on the Democratic side, decides to jump in. And even though the Republicans are still pointing at the Scooby-Doo van and talking about it.
DICKERSON: Hillary Clinton is never going to, no matter how many vans she's gets in or fast food restaurants she stops at, she's never going to look like a regular person who goes through all the abrasions of daily life. That's not going to happen.
Where he strength is -- and it came through even behind the bulletproof glass of the staged event, was that she has been thinking about these issues of family, and wages, and health care her entire life. So, when she refers to a scholarship she set up when she was First Lady of Arkansas she has some facility with the issue. So, she's not going to tell somebody, look, I know what it's like to change diapers because it just isn't going to seem authentic. But she can say, hey, when I was thinking about these issues that you care about now for 30 years that's where her stronger...
RYAN: But she's changing her grandchild's diapers right now. she can say it.
DICKERSON: She can say it, but it's not going to make people think she's just like us.
SCHIEFFER: I think the problem still goes back to this, and I mean, anybody who saw that hilarious Saturday Night Live skit where she's practicing making her opening video and guess who keeps showing up looking over her shoulder, hey, don't forget --
(CROSSTALK)
CORDES: -- nowhere seen this week, by the way.
SCHIEFFER: -- is that good for her or bad for her, Nancy?
CORDES: I think it will be good for her in certain places and at certain times. It's not good for her right now while she's trying to establish that she is the candidate, one and only, front and center but there are going to be times when he can come out and be more comfortable with the press than she can.
So he can create that image of openness that she's striving to achieve. But she can avoid it.
SCHIEFFER: Let's take quick break we'll come right back with a lot more of all of this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: We're back now and I want to go back and play you something that Jeb Bush said up in New Hampshire at a breakfast up there when he got to the subject of, is he going to be his own man. Here is how he put it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEB BUSH, FORMER GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA: Everybody knows me as George's boy, Barbara's boy, W's brother.
I have some other family members but if I'm going beyond the consideration of running for the highest office in the land, I need to share my heart to show a little bit about my life experience.
For those that have family members, I think you can appreciate this. We're not always like our brother or sister or mom and dad. We all have our own unique DNA and our own life experiences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: So that's -- he obviously knows that's what he's got to do.
But how does he do that?
CATANESE: I think ironic thing is that if Jeb Bush was named Jeb Johnson, and a successful two-term governor from Florida he might be in a better position in the Republican Party. Right now other than the money, what the Bush name brings him is the money and the connections.
But I think that the W stuff, he can't get around it. It is going to follow him everywhere. Just like frankly, the Clinton, you know, her husband and what he did is going to follow Hillary. I don't think he's going to be able to do it.
And I think that's why -- we're seeing in some of these pollings his favorability is under 50 percent in some of these early primary states. That is a problem for the presumed early front-runner.
MILBANK: He's also making really no effort, I think, to get away from his brother in particular. You hear him out there using the word "evildoers" and we're all having PTSD flashbacks to 2001. So where is Jeb different from George W, on policy? I don't think we've seen it yet. And you're right, it's a parallel concern for Hillary, where is she going to be different from where her husband was? She was asked -- her campaign was asked about trade this week, huge fight between Obama and the Democratic base. She just completely punted, said she's not getting involved.
DICKERSON: Or where is she going to be different from Barack Obama, not just her husband. I think Jeb Bush has a model for how to do this. When he run for governor in Florida, everybody said the same thing, you're just another Bush. So they called him Jeb. Got rid of the last name.
But he also said I went to 200 schools. I went and hustled and spent the time in the schools and showed that I cared about the issue, in other words he didn't talk about how he wasn't George's brother; he showed that he was his own person. Right now he's spending lot of time raising money but they hope they'll have this opportunity to do a similar thing. Show who he actually is.
That's hard to do in today's news cycle. But that is his real challenge is to actually show who he is and hope that the caricature which has these numbers pretty bad for him right now, people will say, oh, I thought he was something else; now he's this other thing. And that's potentially intriguing.
It's very funny, at times very much like what you hear from supporters of Hillary Clinton for their model of introducing a new person that is hard to introduce as new because everybody knows her.
SCHIEFFER: Nancy, you think this email business is going to prove to be important in this campaign?
CORDES: I think that congressional Republicans will make sure to keep it at the forefront throughout her campaign. It's no accident that the House Benghazi Committee said we want to make sure we hear from you by May 1st because they knew she was going to roll out her campaign in April and so they said, let's dog the campaign announcement with more about Benghazi and the emails. And I think that that is going to kind of dribble along.
And it's part of the reason that I think they are afraid for her to take questions. Because they're worried that all the questions are going to be about emails and not about her vision for the future.
SCHIEFFER: What about all this foreign money? There's no question that a lot of money poured into The Clinton Foundation and I guess they said, now -- what is the latest now? They've said they're going to limit that from here on in?
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: -- amount and they've -- she's no longer on the board. So she's pulled away from that a bit -- she's separated from it a bit.
SCHIEFFER: But aren't Republicans going to say, well, but you ought to give it back?
(CROSSTALK)
MILBANK: Of course they're going to do that and they're going to say you should release your server to get the emails off. And that's going to be on the background here, I think throughout -- the problems for the Republicans is they can't run a general election campaign right now.
I went to the Nationals game this week and the RNC was giving out "Defeat Hillary" beer coozies. That's all well and good, but we have -- as Lindsay Graham said, 35 people running for the Republican presidential nomination. And they seem to think the way to do this is to eat, be more shrill than the other in lambasting Hillary Clinton to the point where you have Donald Trump retweeting a vulgar tweet about Hillary Clinton. That is not going to, I think, win any of them the nomination.
They've got to differentiate themselves other than how they can be the most anti-Hillary.
RYAN: But, yes, Hillary Clinton does have some issues. She has several albatrosses hanging around her neck, but at the same time the Republicans are using this against their -- for their advantage, but when is it that they're going to start internalizing, saying, we've got to point against each other, look at each other and point at each other because once they start pointing at one another, the fractures within that party will start showing and whether it be W -- or not W, Jeb. I'm sorry. I'm --
(CROSSTALK)
RYAN: -- or Cruz or whomever else, you know, Huckabee, whoever else. I mean, once they start looking inward, they're going to show all the fractures. And Hillary is going to rise, even with the hearings. There's going to be a back-and-forth, who has got the momentum, who's got the momentum here. Who's got the momentum there, but the issue is, when will the fingers stop pointing at Hillary and go inward into their own party.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHIEFFER: One of the interesting things -- I mean, we're now in an age of anything goes. There's nothing over the top anymore.
One of the more interesting comments made by Huckabee this week, he told a radio station out in Iowa, I think it was, that people whose children were thinking about going into the U.S. military, they might be wise to put that off until you have another commander in chief because the current one is not very nice to Christians.
CATANESE: Well, that's going to get him a headline.
SCHIEFFER: It got him a headline.
(CROSSTALK) CATANESE: -- and it looks like he is getting closer to being closer to announcing to the announcement of actually running. I think we're going to have two or three more announcements in May.
But again, there's only so much piece of the pie. These guys on Republican side, that can throw the red meat, Ted Cruz is just as good rhetorically. You have got Ben Carson who is also going to probably looks like he's getting into the ring. And I think eventually what is going to happen, you're right, they haven't -- Republicans have been pretty good in New Hampshire, they haven't pointed the arrows at each other yet.
That is coming but I think the ultimate argument in the Republican Party will be who can be beat Hillary. That's why you're hearing all the Hillary comments now. It's going to be electability, who can beat her.
DICKERSON: It's true. But because they're all trying to compete to beat her and there's not so much distinguishing free running room what they're going to do, and this happened to Democrats in 2008 is they're going to get into a competition on policy. You see Chris Christie trying to wake everybody up by saying I've got ideas about entitlements and Social Security purely because you can only do so much to beat you the other guy out in the beating up of Hillary. You just can't be that clever.
SCHIEFFER: One thing -- and we hadn't talked about him -- Marco Rubio, doesn't he also have a little problem here. I asked him about it. If you looked at his profile, it's very similar to that of Barack Obama. And a lot of people thought Barack Obama didn't work out too well.
Doesn't he have to prove to his party that he's not Barack Obama?
RYAN: He's got to prove to his party he's not Barack Obama even though he's still someone considers still a novice on the Hill. He's got to show that he has the potential to be an executive. He can sit there at the highest heights and make the decisions but the problem for him he's so far Right, that when it comes -- because he's focusing in mainly on things for the primary.
But when it comes to general election he has got the immigration piece. But all the other stuff, he's very Far Right. And I don't think he's going to be able to pull the masses of the Republican Party together like he wants to.
MILBANK: And I think that's why Rubio is polling in the high single digits. And each one of them has trouble breaking through a dozen, 15 points here. So normally you would expect some to drop out and others to gain those powers. But somebody like Rubio can raise $40 million and stay in this race as long as he wants, as can all of these other guys.
And you can't see how the race consolidates here and that does leave a huge opening for you, Bob, if you choose the nomination.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHIEFFER: If you had to, and this would be nothing but a horseback guess, who do you think is going to still be around when we get to the New Hampshire primary, which is, after all, 10 months away?
DICKERSON: You know, Bob, I think a lot of them will be around. In the old days they would get winnowed because they'd run out of money or people would think you're kind of off to the side, you're kind of a loser.
Now you have the money because of the super PACs that can operate around you and also being an honest man in a process that is against you is a great way to get on talk radio, to get your own TV shows and to build your own following for whatever you may want to do in the future.
So I think a lot of these candidates, separate and apart from, these are all real candidates. They have held real jobs, governors, senators, they can hold a room. I think you are going to have a lot of people around, which means to win, you might see a pretty small percentage as a winning percentage in the --
SCHIEFFER: Well, you know, we have to end it right there. But once again I've always said, every campaign is different. And certainly this one is going to be different than any that I can remember.
So, thanks to all of you. And we'll be back. We're going to have a look back at the Oklahoma City bombing in a FACE THE NATION flashback.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: Today we mark a somber anniversary, 20 years since the Oklahoma City bombing, one of the worst terrorist attacks our country has ever seen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER (voice-over): As a nation we were just coming to learn about terrorism from abroad. On the heels of the first World Trade Center attack two years earlier, many of us immediately assumed foreign terrorists were behind this one.
But within days, eyewitnesses led investigators to, of all people, U.S. Army veterans Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. That weekend then White House chief of staff Leon Panetta appeared on FACE THE NATION.
LEON PANETTA, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: There is nothing, there is absolutely nothing real or imaginary that in any way justifies the killing of defenseless children. These people are not patriots. They're cowards. They're not heroes; they're criminals.
SCHIEFFER (voice-over): When the final death toll came in two weeks later, 168 people were dead, including 19 children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIEFFER: Nichols was convicted on all counts and currently serving life without parole.
McVeigh was sentenced to death and executed in 2001, three months before 9/11.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCHIEFFER: Well, that's it for us today.
Before we go today, I want to thank someone who has been the artistic talent behind the scenes here at FACE THE NATION, Debra Haselmark (ph) is responsible for the graphics and the look of the show and she'll be leaving us and CBS to start a new chapter in her life. We want to wish her all the best.
Good luck, Deb, we are going to miss you.
The rest of us will be here next week. So we'll see you then.