Face the Nation transcripts August 4, 2013: Schumer, Ryan, and McCaul
(CBS News) Below is a transcript of "Face the Nation" on August 4, 2013, hosted by CBS News' Bob Schieffer. Guests include: Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Reps. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, CBS News' Bob Orr, John Dickerson, and Clarissa Ward, Peggy Noonan, David Sanger, Barton Gellman, and Dan Balz.
SCHIEFFER: Today on FACE THE NATION, America on edge as the U.S. government issues a worldwide terror alert. Twenty-two U.S. embassies are closed because officials say they've uncovered a possible terror threat from al Qaeda. We'll have reports on that and get the latest from the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul. Then we'll turn to the week's other big story: the fallout from Russia granting asylum to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER: Russia has stabbed us in the back. And each day that Snowden is allowed to roam free is another twist of the knife.
SCHIEFFER: We'll hear from New York Democrat Chuck Schumer. And we'll talk with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Plus analysis from The Washington Post's Dan Balz, author of the new book "Collision 2012." Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal. Barton Gellman of TIME magazine and The Washington Post. David Sanger of The New York Times. And CBS News political director John Dickerson. A lot to cover, but it's what we do on FACE THE NATION.
ANNOUNCER: From CBS News in Washington, FACE THE NATION with Bob Schieffer.
SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. Well, we're getting more detail this morning on why the government has closed those 22 American diplomatic posts across the Mideast and North Africa, and why they are taking so seriously the threat of a possible al Qaeda attack. The travel warning that the State Department issued last week for Americans traveling overseas we're now told will remain in effect for the rest of this month. For the latest this morning, we're going to our CBS News homeland security correspondent Bob Orr, who has been all on this for -- oh, for a long, long time. Bob, why are they taking this one so much more seriously than some of the things in the past?
BOB ORR, CBS HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Because this threat, Bob, comes from the group from al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen. It has been the most dedicated, the most active, and is charged from al Qaeda leadership with being in charge of attacking Americans. This is a serious, credible threat, probably the most serious the government has seen since 2006. The problem here is while we know a great deal about what they're trying to do, we're missing some very important points: the date, the time, the scope of the attack, intelligence working overtime this weekend trying to get some of those factors nailed down so that we can try to disrupt this plot.
SCHIEFFER: But there's a lot of really scary stuff going on this morning, talking about surgically-inserted bombs, for one thing. They seem to be talking about something they describe as big.
ORR: Yes, I think the fear is that this may be a big play from a group that has been unable to muster a large-scale attack since 9/11. And they've got some expertise. You talk about the scary stuff. They have a bomb-maker in Yemen named Ibrahim al-Asiri. He is the guy that built the underwear bombs and the printer cartridge bombs. He's a devious genius. And we know in the past he has experimented in research trying to build body bombs, that is, implant explosives in human beings which would give a whole new meaning to suicide bombers. Now while we're not certain at all that that's part of this threat, the fact is he's part of the brain trust there in Yemen that has been working on plots and it can't be discounted. I think what they're really worried about here is something on the scale of like a Mumbai-style ground-based attack that could use explosives and arms. But, again, this is all very fuzzy because the partial information is based on intercepts that the government heard, major al Qaeda figures talking to one another. And that's not real specific.
SCHIEFFER: There have been a number of al Qaeda escapees recently, especially from places like Libya. Do we think there's any connection between that and this?
ORR: Well, it's possible. There was a big prison break in Libya. There was a big prison break in Iraq. This is a lot of manpower for an organization that has been somewhat diminished. But there are some other markers too, Bob. This week Ayman al- Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, had two messages. One came out earlier in the week saying: "It's time again to attack the Americans." And he wanted to free the prisoners in Guantanamo. And then he called for more unrest in Egypt. In the past when the leader of al Qaeda has come out with public messages, that has sometimes been a "go "signal for operators on the ground. Our colleague John Miller has been told there are already operatives in place. And our government knows that much but we don't know where and we don't know what the target is.
SCHIEFFER: OK. Thank you very much, Bob. And we want to go directly now to CBS News foreign correspondent Clarissa Ward, who is at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, which is closed this morning, and where this latest al Qaeda threat just adds to the very tense situation there. Clarissa, what's the latest?
CLARISSA WARD, CBS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bob. Well, the U.S. embassy here in Cairo is just about 200 yards behind me. You can probably see that blast wall there which cuts off any traffic from getting any closer to the embassy. Security is always very tight here, but today the embassy is closed, along with every single other U.S. embassy in the Arab world, as well as several others in predominantly Muslim countries. Now, it's not just diplomats who are being affected here. CBS News has confirmed at least one other U.S. non-governmental organization has asked its American employees to stay at home and work from home today. The period of concern appears to be these final few days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This is one of the most important times in the Muslim calendar. And it is expected all these embassies will open again tomorrow, Bob, but the State Department has said that there may be further closures in the future as it assesses that threat.
SCHIEFFER: And, Clarissa, just adding to all of this, now General al-Sisi, who led to the takedown of President Morsi and the elected government, comes out and in an interview with The Washington Post takes a real swipe at the United States, saying Egyptians will never forget that we abandoned them in this very tense time. Were you a little surprised that he said this?
WARD: I don't think anybody here was very surprised. There's a lot of anti-Americanism here. In that two-hour interview, Sisi basically said that the U.S. had ignored the will of the Egyptian people by refusing to endorse the military takeover. And said he only even ousted President Morsi in order to prevent this country from devolving into a state of civil war. He urged the U.S. as well to use its leverage with the Muslim Brotherhood to try to force them to abandon their protest camps.
SCHIEFFER: You've got a lot to be on the lookout for down there, Clarissa, so be very careful this morning. Thank you.
WARD: Thank you.
SCHIEFFER: The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is in San Diego this morning. He and some other members of his committee are inspecting the border situation there and border security. But, Mr. Chairman, I want to ask you about this threat we're hearing. What precautions are we taking? Is there anything we're not doing we ought to be doing here?
MCCAUL: Well, we're on a high state of alert. I have been given every assurance we're doing everything we can to prevent this threat from happening. And I must say, this is probably one of the most specific and credible threats I've seen perhaps since 9/11. And that's why everybody is taking this so seriously. In fact the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called it "extremely significant." The State Department's warning with respect to the Arabian Peninsula is significant as well because, as your commentator mentioned, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is probably the biggest threat to the homeland. They're the al Qaeda faction that still talks about hitting the West and hitting the homeland. And their expertise is chemical explosives, hitting the aviation sector, as we saw with the underwear bomber. So we on a high state of alert. I think the administration's call to close these embassies, the 21 embassies was actually very -- a very smart call, particularly in light of what happened in Benghazi when warnings were not heeded in that case. I'm glad to see that in this case they're taking this very seriously. And one more thing. You mentioned the prison breaks. I find that to be very interesting as well because we had in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in Pakistan, and in Benghazi, literally thousands of terrorists have been broken out of jails, and they're spread out all throughout the Middle East now. And that presents a very high threat as well.
SCHIEFFER: Mr. Chairman, let me ask you, what is it -- can give me some specifics or what is it that has caused you to call this one of the most serious threats since 9/11 that you've heard about? What in particular makes you feel that way?
MCCAUL: Well, as you know, I'm confined -- I mean, it's classified...
SCHIEFFER: Sure.
MCCAUL: ... briefings, but I will tell you because of the specificity, because of where it is coming from, the credibility of it, the level of chatter, it seems to be a fairly large operation. It's giving the intelligence community quite a bit of pause right now. And the other thing that one of your commentators mentioned as well, Ramadan. Why is that important? Because tonight is the night of power. It's a night that they try the first attempt on a USS Cole- style attack. This week 15 years ago they bombed the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And then Zawahiri has basically set out a decree to the jihadists on his Web site saying, now is the time to attack U.S. interests. This warning from Zawahiri really comes right on the heels of the State Department warning. And so that's of grave concern to us.
SCHIEFFER: You know, the fact that, obviously, this information is coming to us intercepts, is the fact that they've been talking about this on the phone, obviously, or in some way, they must know the abilities of the United States in this field -- the fact that they're talking about it, does that lead you to believe they're just more confident or could they be just trying to talk about it to lead us off in odd directions or something here?
MCCAUL: Well, you know, I can't talk, really, about sources and methods, as you know. However, hopefully, you know, the good news is, in this case, there may have been some loose intelligence on the part of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. And that's a good thing if, you know, that's happening. So I -- I have to be very careful about what I say on this, but I will tell you again the threat is, I perceive, very imminent. The one good thing, I think, about the State Department issuing these warnings, and the administration, is that, when you let them know that you know, you put them on their heels, and they oftentimes back down. We've seen that -- as a counterterrorism federal prosecutor, we've seen that happen time over time. And so I'm hopeful, in this case, that, you know, that will happen as well. And I want to assure the American people that we are doing everything we can to protect them and to prevent this from happening.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for joining us this morning. In our broadcast center in New York, Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer is with us this morning. Senator Schumer, all of this comes as there is increasing pressure in Congress to rein in the National Security Agency. Do you think this is going to change that debate in any way or should there be more controls on the NSA?
SCHUMER: Well, I think what today shows, of course, is that security is very, very important and that the agencies in charge are darned good. They're able to listen in and hear what's going on. They have disrupted many, many, many terrorist plots, and let's hope they're disrupting this one as well. Having said that, you know, there's always a balance between security and liberty. And there's always a time to reexamine that. It is appropriate to do that right now, and I do think that reexamination will go forward. My view is very simple. In these things, there should be -- whenever there is an age-old fight between security and liberty, which there has been since the Constitution was written, first there should be an open debate in both Congress and with the American people. Second, rules should be established. And third -- and I think here's the weakness -- there has to be an independent arbiter to make sure the rules are being enforced. And because the FISA Court is so secret, people don't know if it's being an effective independent arbiter or not. Some say yes; some say no. So a proposal like that of Senator Merkley, which would make the FISA Court provisions more public, of course, redacting anything that would affect national security, might make some sense and might let the American people know more what's going on.
SCHIEFFER: You came down pretty hard the other day on Edward Snowden and the Russians when they granted asylum to Snowden. He, of course, is the guy who has leaked so much of this information. Do you think that any of what we're going through right now has anything to do with anything that Snowden might have leaked that these people have picked up and are now causing them to push forward on this?
SCHUMER: Well, it's much too early to tell that. Obviously, these plots that Al Qaida does take months and months and months to germinate. So, obviously, they started before that. Whether it had an effect, no one knows. But I will say that the relationship between the United States and Russia, for instance, is more poisonous than at any time since the Cold War because of all of this.
SCHIEFFER: Well, what about the Russians giving Snowden asylum? You said the other day it was a stab in the back.
SCHUMER: Yeah.
SCHIEFFER: What should we do now? Should we not go to that international economic conference in Russia? Should the president cancel the individual summit that he had planned with President Putin?
SCHUMER: Yeah, I would urge the president to cancel the bilateral summit he's having with Mr. Putin. President Putin's behaving like a schoolyard bully, and in my experience I've learned, unless you stand up to that bully, they ask for more and more and more. And he's always going out of his way, President Putin is, to seem to poke us in the eye, whether it's in Iran, in Syria, now with Snowden. So I would urge the president not to go forward with the bilateral meeting next month. That would give Putin the kind of respect he doesn't deserve at this point in time. I'd also urge the preside to try to urge our allies, if it were possible, to move the G-20 summit away from St. Petersburg. Some of them may not want to do that. The G-20 summit's important, but certainly, on our own end, for the president to meet with Putin in a one-on-one meeting later this month would give him respect he doesn't deserve after all he's done.
SCHIEFFER: So you'd just move the whole thing -- not only cancel the summit with Putin but also move the whole international conference? Senator...
SCHUMER: If -- if possible. I think we'd have to, Bob, get the OK of our allies, and some of them might say no on that one. And I still would go forward with that.
SCHIEFFER: Why do you think Putin did this? I mean, this, kind of, has a high school-like scenario to it. But, you know, often nations have some reason behind their actions. Do you think this was a calculated strategy on his part?
SCHUMER: Look, I think that President Putin feels the loss of Russian power, certainly since the end of the Cold War, keenly, being an old KGB officer. And he's trying to build it back up. The trouble is, the way he's trying to build it back up is not by strengthening the economy or making Russia a more free and robust place -- he persecutes all of his political opponents -- but rather by, sort of, stepping on our back. You know, there's always somebody in any group, whether it's a business, a social organization, a religious organization, who can get a lot of attention by make trouble even though the common good goes in the other direction. And Putin seems to want to build himself up in the negative ways, not the positive ways that a leader often does. I think that's his motivation. In the long run, that doesn't succeed. But in the short run, by standing up to him and showing him that those kinds of, as you say, sometimes puerile actions should have consequences makes sense. And that's why I think we shouldn't go forward with the bilateral summit.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Well, Senator, thank you very much. I think you made a little news here this morning. We'll be back in one minute to hear from vice presidential -- the former vice presidential candidate, Republican Paul Ryan.
SCHIEFFER: We're back now with the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, who, as everyone knows, was Mitt Romney's running mate in the presidential election last time out. He is a key player in the coming battles on the -- over the fiscal crisis that will be coming up this fall. But, Congressman, I want to just start with where we left off there with -- with Senator Schumer. He said the United States ought to -- not only should President Obama not meet with Russian President Putin but should talk to our allies about moving that whole international economic conference to another country, now that Russia has decided to give political asylum to Edward Snowden. What's your -- what's your reaction to that?
RYAN: Well, you know, for once, Bob, I agree with Chuck Schumer on that. I think President Putin is -- thinks he can get away with pushing around this administration because the administration has given, sort of, appeasement feelings that they can do this. The reset policy has been an utter failure. This is a stab in the back. This is a slap in the face. And I actually agree with Senator Schumer, that has to come with consequences. And I think the administration should proceed just like we just now discussed.
SCHIEFFER: All right. Congressman, you said a couple weeks ago that you thought the NSA surveillance program was creepy when the news first broke about the collection of phone numbers that they were putting together. And you said it went way beyond the scope, as you understood the Patriot Act. Now that we have had this new news about this threat and Al Qaida planning some sort of an attack, do you still feel that way?
RYAN: No, I do think we need to reauthorize and reform this program. A lot of us have learned much, much more about it since it was revealed. The Intelligence Committee and the Judiciary Committee are moving forward with reforms of this program. We do have to do more, I believe, to protect our liberties without sacrificing our national security. And I think that can be done. There was a vote to defund the entire program. I didn't support that vote, because I think the smarter way to go about it is rewrite the law that authorizes this, and that's exactly what our intelligence committee is in the middle of doing, is reforming this program to protect our liberties while making sure we have the necessary tools to protect national security without violating our civil liberties. And I think there's a better way to get that balance.
SCHIEFFER: Are you convinced that the NSA is violating our privacy or sort of has the capability to do that?
RYAN: Well, I think they have the capability. I can't speak to whether they are or not doing that, but I think that there are more controls that we can put in place. I think there's a way we can reform the way they do this so that we can guarantee our liberties are not being violated.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this we're going to have this battle come fall about whether to shut down the government if we can't get this fiscal situation worked out, but now some members of your party are talking about threatening to shut downtown government unless the administration agrees not to fund Obamacare, the president's health care plan. Do you think that's a good idea?
RYAN: Well, look, we all, Republicans, want to repeal and replace Obamacare. So it's not a matter of whether or not we want to get rid of Obamacare, we do. We're having a debate about the best course of achieving that goal, the best strategy. And with the government shutdown, so to speak, we're talking about discretionary spending, just government agency budgets, but it doesn't affect entitlements. Obamacare is an entitlement like Medicare and Social Security is, and so the entitlement carries on even under a government shutdown scenario. So it's just not that simple and easy. You know, rather than sort of swinging for the fences and trying to take this entire law out with discretionary spending, I think there are more effective ways of achieving that goal. We think that we can do better by delaying this law. We've already had votes to delay other parts of it. Democrats have supported us in that. And so I think there's going to be a better strategy to actually achieve our goal of ultimately delaying it, ultimately replacing Obamacare.
SCHIEFFER: All right, let me ask you about another very controversial issue within your party and that is immigration reform. Can your party survive as a major political party if you don't come up with some sort of immigration reform? I mean, Lindsey Graham for one says you're in a downward demographic death spiral unless you figure out some way to reform immigration. What do you think the Republicans ought to do on that?
RYAN: Look, I disagree that we should approach this issue based on what's right for us politically. We should approach this issue on what we think is the right thing to do, what's the right policy. And speaking to that, we are not going tyke up the Senate bill in the House because we don't support the Senate bill. We have been listening to the American people. So what we're going to do is take a step-by-step approach to get immigration right, not a big massive bill but separate bills so people know what's in these bills. Number one, Bob -- and just look at this terror threat we have -- we don't have control of our border. We don't know who is coming and going in this country. We need real border enforcement and that means we really don't trust the administration with the administration with discretion in this area. So we need a border enforcement law, first and foremost, that cannot be voided. We need interior enforcement and we need to fix our legal immigration system. Right now people come to this country based on family relations, not based on skills. Most other countries have a legal immigration system that's good for their country, we should do the same. And when it comes to the undocumented, people who came here illegally, we want to give people a chance to get right with the law while respecting the rule of law and that means not doing an amnesty. So, we have got specific ideas that we're looking at on how to get people and get right with the law, that means going on probation. You have it to go on certain terms of probation, and it's one track policy -- you don't meet the conditions of your probation. Pay fines, pay back taxes, get a background check, learn English, learn civics and make sure we have independently identified we have secured the borders. And have our interior enforcement provisions like e-verify and a visa tracking system in place. Then and only then can that person get a legal work permit, no special path way. And if a person in this situation wants to get in the line to get a green card, like any other immigrant, only at the back of the line, because we to be fair to that legal immigrant who did everything right in the first place. We think that's the right way to go. That's the opposite of amnesty. And more importantly, Bob, this step-by-step approach I think will be better guarantees that we are not in the same mess 10 years from now which is exactly what happened last two times we did immigration reform. So we want to get it right. And we want to do what's right for national and for economic security and our motivation is not what's good for us politically, because if we just think like that, we're not going to do this the right way.
SCHIEFFER: All right, well congressman, I want to thank you for being with us this morning. Hope to see you again soon. We'll be back in a minute.
SCHIEFFER: We want to take a moment here to note the passing of our good friend and longtime NBC News colleague John Palmer. He died yesterday after a brief illness. John Palmer was 77.
SCHIEFFER: And welcome back now to Page two of Face the Nation. Joining us today, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journey, the chief correspondent of the Washington Post Dan Balz here today on the eve of the release of his new book "Collision 2012" all about last year's campaign. Also with us, Bart Gellman, who writes for the Washington Post, Time Magazine is the senior fellow at the Carnegie Century Foundation, was on the NSA snooping story very early on. David Sanger, the chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times. And rounding out the group, our old pall John Dickerson, our CBS news political director. So we had this threat. Does this -- Barton, you're the one that first broke this story about Edward Snowden. Does this change this debate on what the National Security Agency is doing? Because, obviously, the reason we know about this threat is the capabilities that the National Security Agency has.
BARTON GELLMAN, "TIME": Well, it's a reminder of the other side of the story, which is that we depend on intelligence. We depend on surveillance, and particularly, we depend on signals intelligence to keep the country safe. That's the point that I see the intelligence community has been making. It doesn't change much about whether they've gone too far or whether we understand enough about the basic outlines of what they're doing that affects American privacy.
SCHIEFFER: Do you think -- I mean, because people always say this when something like this happens. People will say, "You don't suppose they're making more of this threat than it really is because they want to make the point that this is what they do."
GELLMAN: I don't have any reason to think that. The -- one reason to doubt it is that the French and the British are also closing embassies, particularly in Yemen, which is a much narrower slice of their diplomatic world than the whole North African front from the U.S. But they, also, are taking the threat seriously, and the French are not particularly enamored of what has been said recently about the NSA.
SCHIEFFER: You know, Peggy, Chuck Schumer took it step beyond where it was, I think, this morning, when he said because Russia gave political asylum to Edward Snowden, that the president should not only cancel the summit he had with Putin, but should also talk to our allies and try to move this big economic conference, international conference, that was going to be held there.
PEGGY NOONAN, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": That was kind of strong. Also, Paul Ryan seemed to immediately agree with him. So I think maybe there will be a little bipartisan push on that. I think those in the American government, looking at Vladimir Putin and what he's done, are feeling resentful and they're feeling dissed. They're wondering why he's treating America so roughly. My own sense of it -- we were discussing before -- is that I think Putin is doing this because he can, because he judges us now to be a country in some difficulties, in some trouble. It's not all his relationship with Obama. It's his sense of who America is, and it's his 50-year-old resentment for what America has been. So I think we're in a rough time, and my own sense is, if you make America stronger, you will make it stronger in the world and people will be less eager to snub you in colorful ways.
SCHIEFFER: But, you know, David, this is almost like -- it's kind of following a kind of high school scenario here. Here you have Putin sort of -- sort of taking on the role of Hugo Chavez. I mean, nobody thought Venezuela posed any kind of threat to the United States, but Chavez apparently thought he could really make his place in the world by poking his finger in the eye of the giant. And it seems like Russia, which doesn't have much going now but oil revenues -- and of course they do have nuclear weapons -- I don't think anybody thinks they're going to use those. But just sort of picking at -- like a picador at a bullfight or something.
DAVID SANGER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I think that's exactly right, Bob. This is half high school, half Cold War playbook and this is exactly the kinds of things that used to take place in the Cold War when countries -- particularly the old Soviet Union -- needed to find ways to get at the United States, short of something that would escalate into real conflict. And, you know, we have to remember that Putin grew up in the KGB, in a world in which this kind of thing was fairly standard. I think that the idea of moving the entire summit, as opposed to canceling just the bilateral meeting between the president and Putin, is a little more difficult and a little more fraught than we've sort of let on in these conversations. Why is this meeting happening in Russia? Why have there been other such summits, including many that President Bush went to in Russia? Because there was a decision made during the Clinton administration that, over the long term, Russia needed to be integrated with the rest of the world and needed to feel as if it wasn't being excluded from the big economic decision-making that was going on. And so they were brought in, what was called the Group of Seven was turned into sort of the Group of Eight. And that's why the meeting's happening. If you move it away, you're basically saying to Russia that, at this point, the United States regards them as another kind of power outside of that group, and you're stopping that integration. It's a big decision. I would bet President Obama's not ready to do that.
JOHN DICKERSON, CBS NEWS POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's not a gamble he wants to take. When you talk to administration officials, Jay Carney, in responding to Russia's decision here, said they were disappointed. Pretty weak. But that's because basically administration officials say we're not going to get into a big further public arm wrestling match with Putin, because we have got other issues we need to deal with Russia on -- Syria, North Korea and Iran. So we've got bigger priorities with them. If you were to try and move the G20, suddenly you have a huge global wrestling match where the president is trying to convince all those other countries to postpone and move this? That's a huge prestige gamble for this president that probably wouldn't pay off. And they're trying to move in the other direction in the White House -- de-escalate, move on to those other important issues.
SCHIEFFER: Dan, I want to get to you and your book in just a minute when we shift to domestic politics. But I want to go back to Barton. And Snowden himself -- we know his lawyer went to see him last week and we're told brought him a change of clothes. Does that mean he's been wearing the same clothes all this time -- which you don't have to answer that question.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHIEFFER: What I'm wondering, have you had any more dealings with Snowden since these initial reports came out? And what's going on him, do you think?
GELLMAN: He's in a very interesting position. He's finally out of this, this strange little Twilight Zone in the airport. His hair was looking a little long. And he's able to live and work anywhere. He's had his first job offer from essentially the Russian equivalent -- Condocte (ph) -- of Facebook. He says he actually would like to work in human rights campaigning instead. Putin has some choices to make here. He's made his point. He's showed strength against the United States. He could, theoretically, extend Snowden's stay there all the way to citizenship one day. Or with his old KGB wiles, he could find a way to ship him out on an airplane while no one's looking and suddenly Snowden appears somewhere in Latin America.
SCHIEFFER: But would you agree that Snowden has pretty much with this, has forfeited any hope, if he ever thought he could be seen as a hero to the American people? Not many American heroes take up residence --
(CROSSTALK)
GELLMAN: Well, there are not a whole lot of people who would say that Russia is a more sort of rights-friendly environment than the United States. But on the other hand, a majority of the American people still fairly consistently, since this story broke, regard him as more whistleblower than enemy of the country. So, I mean, people do approve of the idea that there should be a big debate on these issues.
DAN BALZ, "THE WASHINGTON POST": But he has become a less sympathetic figure the longer he has been there, based on a lot of the evidence that we've seen.
SCHIEFFER: Dan, let me -- let's talk a little bit about your book. This book is kind of -- I think a lot of people are going to say -- will be the definitive book on last year's presidential campaign. It's a wonderful book. What -- as you wrote this book -- I guess I always ask this question of authors -- what was the surprise for you? What did you find out that you didn't know or that you had -- you know, didn't even have an indication of that it might be that way?
BALZ: Well, a number of things, Bob. One surprise, obviously, was when I sat down with Governor Romney in January of this year to get him to look back on the campaign. The surprises were, A, how open he was about some of the things they did wrong, but also the difficulty he was having digesting some other aspects of what had happened in the campaign, two in particular, the infamous 47 percent comment, which he still doesn't quite believe he said what he said and tried to explain to me that, as he read through notes on his iPad. It was a very interesting moment. And also the line about self-deportation that he used in one of the Republican debates, which, clearly, caused him a great deal of problem and which, even in that interview in January, he still believed was a relatively benign comment as opposed to a harsh comment about his view on immigration.
SCHIEFFER: He really thought he was going to win, didn't he, at the end?
BALZ: He did. He said me in that interview, "On Election Day, I was confident we were going to win. He said, "Not 90 percent confident, but," he said, "I felt that we were in a position to win this election." And he made another interesting comment, which was that after the Republican -- after the first presidential debate in Denver, where he, obviously, did very well and the president did poorly, he said the campaign for him -- and he felt the party -- changed from being clinical to being emotional. And by what he -- what he meant by that was that the Republican base was mostly enthusiastic up to that point about defeating President Obama and after that debate, he felt they became enthusiastic about electing him as president. And he said it gratified him, but it also, in a sense, gave off false indicators of just where he stood in the campaign.
SCHIEFFER: Was he a good candidate, Peggy?
NOONAN: No, not really. He had a lot of problems going in. There were many vulnerabilities he presented to the Democrats. He was probably -- I would say, certainly the best of what was in 2012 a weak Republican field. So he became in a way the inevitable nominee. Can I say something about Dan's book? One of the things that's very special about it is that it is not only about what happened. It's about how people think. There's a part where Dan talks about the Obama campaign, not just as a political operation but in a way a sociological operation, that was so fascinating to me, how deeply they drilled into -- or attempted to drill into the American psyche. That's the kind of stuff that is going to change national political -- national presidential politics, I think.
DICKERSON: I think, also, we have -- we look at Dan's book and we also can look to the next election. The question with Mitt Romney was, was he a uniquely bad candidate or these two moments Dan seized on, the self-deportation comment and the comment about 47 percent. What Romney was trying to do in both of those instances was hit the target in his own party on immigration, trying to speak to those voices that want a really strong candidate who is against illegal immigrants. And on the 47 percent, speaking to -- at a fundraiser to people in the audience who kind of had that view about the other half of the country. And so the question is, is any candidate in 2016 trying to hit those same targets going to have the same difficulty once they get into a general election, or is it not a problem endemic to the party and it's just that Mitt Romney was a bad candidate?
SCHIEFFER: You know...
NOONAN: Can I say one of the problems is that the establishment, if you will, of the Republican Party, including, say, its consulting class nationally and its presidential candidates, what they're trying to do is hit the target of what they imagine in their imaginations is the feelings and impulses of the base. They're not good at that anymore. They're not in touch with -- with the ground in America anymore in a way that they used to be. And that's part of the problem. They're not aiming at a specific target, they're aiming at a target they can't fully see.
SCHIEFFER: I'll tell you, this I think that Mitt Romney -- and this is opinion clearly labeled as such, was a much better candidate than the candidate the Republicans ran. And I say that in this way, Mitt Romney was a pretty good governor. The people up there liked him. He wrote a good health care law. Mitt Romney was a pretty good businessman. He was an excellent businessman. Mitt Romney was truly, in the best sense of the word, a man of faith. But he didn't run as any of those things. He didn't want to talk about being governor because then he'd have to talk about the health care law. He didn't want to talk about being a man of faith because he'd had to bring up Mormonism, which he thought was not a good thing. He basically was a moderate. That used to be a good thing, and he knew he had to run as a conservative, which the Republican Party and most Republicans never thought he was. And he didn't do a very good job of convincing people of that.
SANGER: But, Bob, he also underestimated the opposition. I think that's what sort of jumps out from Dan's reporting out here. For a guy who runs the numbers to wildly underestimate how many African-Americans were going to come out a second time enthusiastically for Barack Obama. As the father of a young voter, I was surprised at the degree to which the Obama administration -- or the Obama campaign managed to communicate to 18- to 22-year-olds who had never voted before. And the Romney campaign was almost absent from that group. Those were pretty fundamental errors.
BALZ: There were two elements of that. One, as David suggests, the ability to find voters who were likely to support the president and get them registered, get them mobilized, make sure they voted. The Obama campaign was much more effective at that. How decisive that was, people can debate about it, but there's no question there was a mismatch in the two campaigns in how they did it. But the other, and I in some ways, more fundamental mistake on the part of the Republicans in the Romney campaign, was just misjudging what the electorate was going to be on Election Day. I mean, they just thought it was going to be -- there would be a higher percentage of white voters and a smaller percentage of minority voters, and a higher percentage of Republicans than it turned out to be, and a smaller percentage of Democrats. So on fundamental questions about how they shaped the campaign, they were off.
SCHIEFFER: Let's just take a break here and we'll come back in just a second.
SCHIEFFER: Well, now that we've figured out the presidential campaign, it's always easier, isn't it, to figure out what happened than to try to analyze what's about to happen. But I can't see anything good coming this fall when Congress comes back. They've left the whole deficit financing, and getting a budget. That's all in a total mess. Now we have some Republicans who want to shut down the government if they can't get the administration to agree not to fund Obamacare. My sense of it is that's not going to happen.
DICKERSON: No, it's not going to happen in part because you have other Republicans saying this is craziness, we don't want to shut down the government. We don't want to -- I think one thing is -- one thing we didn't have this time before they left for vacation was the last- minute brinksmanship moment. We've had that every other vacation going back in history. The problem is they pushed the brinksmanship to the fall. One thing that was illustrative, I think. Two weeks ago when you talked to John Boehner, he said, don't judge us by what we pass but what we keep from passing, which is defensible. If you believe government is too big, you don't want to pass more bills to keep it going. But there is a minimum standard. And this week the House Republicans failed that minimum standard. There was an appropriations bill that came up. This is what you have to do to kind of keep government going. And they couldn't pass it. They had to pull the vote because they didn't have the votes for it. And what they could pass was the 40th attempt to knock down the Affordable Care Act. That's not going anywhere. It's a totally symbolic vote. The Senate is not going to take it up. But the base -- they think the base likes it. This goes to Peggy's point. But the Republicans in Washington think the base like it. But when you spend more time maintaining your base and not doing the basic maintenance of passing these appropriations bills, that's where you get into a problem.
SCHIEFFER: I think, Peggy, that they will wind up not passing any kind of immigration reform. Again, that's opinion.
NOONAN: Yes.
SCHIEFFER: But I don't see how they do that when you've got the House where most Republican districts are heavily white. They have very few Hispanic voters in those districts. It's a very easy vote to vote against reform for them, and they almost guarantee themselves a primary opponent if they vote for it. So I think it's not going anywhere. But what about...
NOONAN: Yes, I think it's unpopular. It's unpopular with the Republican base. It's unpopular with the Republican -- I don't know what to call it, leadership class, I guess, big mouths in Washington who -- I guess, well, how do you do?
(LAUGHTER)
NOONAN: It's just unpopular. So I think they're not going to pass it. The thing a number of us have been urging for a while that Paul Ryan said today, break this thing into little separate discrete pieces that can be popular, and put them forward and pass them. That's a possibility. But he's right. The Senate thing is going nowhere. Nobody trusts the Congress to do anything comprehensive.
SCHIEFFER: But what about -- Dan, what about on the finances and just keeping the government running? I mean, are they going to be able to come to some kind of an agreement here some time?
BALZ: It's -- I mean, it's not at all clear based on what -- as John said, what happened before they left town. I mean, the situation we now have is Democrats and Republicans at loggerheads, and, increasingly, it seems, Republicans and Republicans at loggerheads. Now when you have those kinds of divisions and fissures and fractures and all, it makes it hard, particularly in the amount of time available. I mean, they have nine legislative days when they come back to do all of this.
SCHIEFFER: This is not without an impact beyond our borders, is it, Bart? Because you see other countries that look at us and they're saying, what are these people doing? And you don't see many people that think, well, it would be a good idea to follow that model right now. And it used to be -- we used to be the city on the hill, as Ronald Reagan said.
NOONAN: Yes.
GELLMAN: This used to be the reason why we said it's better to have two major parties than, you know, 200 that you have in Italy or something, you can get something done. I think the seed of the explanation are exactly what you said before, Bob, which is that it's not -- you don't have to -- you shouldn't analyze it solely on a national basis. The Republicans are doing things that they all understand, on government shutdown, on immigration, are hurting them nationally and making it harder for them to take back national control. But if you go back to your own district and you're going to slit your own throat if you vote for an immigration bill or if you vote for shutting down the government, people say, "You know, go to it, that's great."
SCHIEFFER: But if we don't get this financial thing settled, you've got Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense, David, talking about having to mothball three aircraft carriers.
SANGER: Yeah, he was out this week with some statements that basically worked from the Pentagon's internal assumption that the sequester, something we haven't discussed, you know, in weeks and months but which seemed impossible or inconceivable a year ago, is probably almost certainly going to extend into next year. The first time the Pentagon was able to, sort of, get by with furloughing people and so forth. It was uncomfortable, but they managed to do it. What you were hearing from Secretary Hagel was that, next year, he basically is going to have to change the fundamental assumptions on which the United States would be ready to handle a conflict with Iran and with North Korea, two, obviously, geographically separated places, at the same time. And, you know, already the American presence in the Persian Gulf has, sort of, pulled down. What it also does, Bob, is it really eliminates any ability to do real long-term planning. So the idea of doing a pivot to Asia and, sort of, reorienting the Navy to be able to go do that, none of that can happen while you're spending a few years trying to just figure out how to stay afloat.
SCHIEFFER: All right, we're going to have to end it there. I want to thank you all very much. I'm sorry to end on such a pessimistic note...
(LAUGHTER)
SCHIEFFER: ... but that's where we. We'll be back in a minute. I'll have some final personal thoughts.
SCHIEFFER: Michael Ansara, the actor who specialized in playing American Indians and aliens, died last week at age 91. He will be remembered by many for his "Star Trek" role as Kang, the evil Klingon leader, but I'll remember him for his earlier role as the Apache Indian chief Cochise. And because he and his then-wife Barbara Eden, who would go on to play the title role in "I Dream of Jeannie," were the first celebrities I ever interviewed. It was 1957, and they came to Fort Worth because he was guest- starring at the rodeo. I was a 20-year-old college student working nights at a little radio station and was sent out to interview them. It was not easy. Tape recorders were suitcase-sized in those days. I had never interviewed a movie star, and their hotel near the rodeo arena had no elevator. Once I wrestled the tape recorder up to their room, I was out of breath, had somehow lost the questions I planned to ask, and managed to say to her at one point, "In your show, you basically play a dumb blonde, right?" to which she responded, "Basically." Even so, they treated me with patience and good humor. A lot has changed in journalism since then. Recorders are much smaller. I hope I've learned to ask better questions. I'm sure they soon forgot the episode, and I never saw them again, but I never forgot how kind they were to a kid who had no idea what he was doing. When you're the kid, you never forget those things. Back in a minute.
SCHIEFFER: Well, that's it for us today. Be sure to tune into "CBS This Morning" tomorrow for the latest news on the terror threat and an interview with Oprah Winfrey. We'll be back next week, right here. See you then.