Face the Nation Transcripts July 19, 2015: Kerry, Moniz, Netanyahu
(CBS News) -- A transcript from the July 19 edition of Face the Nation. Guests included Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Frank Luntz, Robert Costa, Gwen Ifill, Mark Leibovich, Ruth Marcus, Margaret Brennan, Jeffrey Goldberg and David Ignatius.
JOHN DICKERSON, HOST: Today on FACE THE NATION: The Obama administration makes a deal with Iran, and now tries to sell it to Congress. And has Donald Trump finally gone too far?
We sat down with the top U.S. negotiators, Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
Then we will hear from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a top critic of the deal.
A shooting rampage at Marine recruiting center in Chattanooga takes five lives. We will talk to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, about these type of lone wolf terror attacks.
And Donald Trump goes on the defensive after he criticisms former Vietnam POW John McCain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He's not a war hero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a war hero, five-and-a-half years as a prisoner...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured. OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: We will have analysis on that and all the news.
It's all ahead on FACE THE NATION.
Good morning. And welcome to FACE THE NATION. I'm John Dickerson.
We're going to start this morning with a historic deal between the United States and Iran to limit that country's nuclear capabilities. Congress has 60 days to review the deal and vote on it.
Friday, we sat down with Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who will face considerable skepticism when they testify on the deal this week in Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DICKERSON: Mr. Secretary, Iran is a sworn enemy of the United States. Why should Americans -- when they see Iranians dancing in the street with this deal, why shouldn't they be suspicious about it?
JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, everybody should be. We're suspicious, which is why we negotiated the deal that is not based on trust at all.
Everything that this deal is based on is on performance that can be verified. And that is critical. But, look, Ronald Reagan negotiated with the former Soviet Union. Richard Nixon negotiated with what was then known as Red China.
You have to negotiate sometimes with people to make the world and your country safer. And we negotiated because President Obama thought the primary challenge here was getting a nuclear weapon away from Iran. And we believe this deal does that.
DICKERSON: Secretary Moniz, one of the real opponents of this deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said of the 24-day waiting period on inspections, he said, you wouldn't tell a drug dealer, give them 24-day notice. They would just flush the drugs down the toilet.
Does he have a point?
ERNEST MONIZ, U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY: I don't think that's really an option here with nuclear materials.
The first point is that, under IAEA engagements, they have no time frame for resolving issues when going to undeclared sites. So, first of all, getting a defined time frame is very, very critical. There has to be a process to go through with the P5-plus-one to force -- in case of a dispute, to force inspection.
Iran otherwise is in breach. Now, 24 days, we feel very confident in the capability of IAEA with environmental sampling to detect any nuclear activity very, very long after it has occurred.
DICKERSON: What happened, Mr. Secretary, with anytime, anywhere?
KERRY: Never -- this is a term that honestly I never heard in the four years that we were negotiating. It was not on the table.
There's no such thing in arms control as anytime, anywhere. There isn't any nation in the world, none, that has an anytime, anywhere. And the truth is, what we always were negotiating was an end to the interminable delays that people had previously.
What Ernie just said is that the IAEA has no way to end it. We negotiated a way to end it. We have a finite time period. That's never happened before. And we have one nation's ability to take this to the Security Council to enforce it. That is unique. And we think it was a huge accomplishment to be able to get this finite period.
DICKERSON: Just to check the record here, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, said in April you will have anywhere, anytime, 24-7 access.
KERRY: Well, we do, but -- we have access to Fordow, access to Natanz, access to these places.
I don't know if he was referring everywhere, but an access resolution of an IAEA challenge for a suspected facility that's undeclared, this is a breakthrough agreement which has a finite period that our intel community, and our scientists -- and here is one of the foremost nuclear scientists in the country telling us that that is -- there is no way for them to hide that material or do away in 24 days.
(CROSSTALK)
MONIZ: If I could just jump and clarify that again, that, in IAEA world, it is very important to distinguish declared and undeclared sites.
Declared, we have 24-hour access. Undeclared, we have this process, anywhere, I might add.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: We will have to move on there.
Secretary Kerry, you're allowing as a part of this deal a terrorist nation to get both conventional arms and ballistic missiles. Why is that a good idea and why is that a part of this?
KERRY: Actually, we're not.
There is a limit on their ability to do so. Under the arms embargo, arms control, there will be limit of five years, and under the missile, in eight years, and the reason that we're only able to limit them to the five and eight, which is quite extraordinary that we got that, was that three of the nations negotiating thought they shouldn't have any and were ready to hold out to do that.
And we said under no circumstances. We have to have those. And they add on to additional mechanisms that we have to hold them accountable on arms and missiles. We have the missile control technology regime. We have other missile restraints on them. We also have other U.N. resolutions that prevent them from moving arms to the Houthi, prevents them from moving arms to the Shia, prevents them from -- to the Shia militia in Iraq, prevents them from moving arms to Hezbollah.
So, we have an ability way beyond, nothing to do with this agreement, to continue to enforce those issues.
DICKERSON: How should Americans think about Iran in the wake of this agreement? Iran America's enemy?
KERRY: Well, Iran has been, obviously. And we have been at odds.
The same way that Ronald Reagan negotiated with the Soviet Union, and the same way that Richard Nixon negotiated what we then called Red China, we have now negotiated with somebody who took our embassy over, took hostages, killed Americans, many of the things you hear people say, supported terrorism.
But what we need to recognize is that an Iran that we want to stop the behavior of with a nuclear weapon is a very different Iran than an Iran without a nuclear weapon. And we saw this opportunity. The president saw it, and committed us to try to find a way through diplomacy to end that program of nuclearization with a weapon, and that's exactly what we have done.
DICKERSON: But how -- you said they were an enemy. What are they now?
KERRY: Well, I said, they have been an enemy. They are still -- we're still adversaries. We're not allies and friends, by any means. And this agreement does only one thing.
It -- and you heard the ayatollah just in the last days proclaiming the continued enmity with the United States. So, there are no illusions about that. What we know, however, is that an Iran without a nuclear weapon is a very different country than Iran with one and that a Middle East without a nuclear weapon is a safer Middle East.
So, we believe that Israel, we believe the region will ultimately be much safer because of this deep. Now, if you don't -- if we don't do this deal, if Congress says no to this deal, then there will be no restraints on Iran, there will be no sanctions left. Our friends in this effort will desert us. We will be viewed as having killed the opportunity to stop them from having a weapons. They will begin to enrich again, and the greater likelihood is what the president said the other day; you will have a war.
DICKERSON: Last question. If you don't get majority in Congress to support this deal, doesn't that undermine the deal?
KERRY: No, not in the least. The Congress -- they don't care over there whether it's majority or a minority or whatever it is, as long as the deal is implemented.
And that's what we care about, that this deal be implemented. We would love see the Congress listen carefully. And we're going to go up and we're going to meet with them. We're going to do our utmost to persuade people.
But, no, I don't think that undermines this deal. This deal will stand ultimately on the fact that there's unprecedented inspection, unprecedented access, unprecedented restraint in their program which they have agreed to. There will be an increase in the breakout time for fissile material for one weapon from two months to one year for the next 10 years.
There is a limit on their size of their stockpile for 15 years. For 25 years, they are going to have to allow tracking and monitoring of their mining, of their uranium all the way through the fuel cycle. And our experts are convinced, experts are convinced, that we will know what they were doing and we will be able to protect our security interests and the interests of the region.
MONIZ: I would just add that, for the long term, we are certainly better off with regard to any weapon possibility with this deal than without it. That starts day one. And it goes on essentially indefinitely.
DICKERSON: All right, Secretary Moniz, Secretary Kerry, thank you.
MONIZ: Thank you very much.
KERRY: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DICKERSON: Joining me now is a top critic of the Iran nuclear deal, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr. Prime Minister, Secretary Kerry has said that Iran was an enemy of the United States and is now an adversary. You have said the real question is, what is the nature of the Iranian regime? Why is that so important?
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Well, you got a pretty big indication of that yesterday, when the ruler of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei, says after this agreement is concluded that he's going to continue the battle against the United States, he's going to continue supporting terrorists in the Middle East and in the world.
He's committed to Israel's destruction. And this regime has just received a dream deal. It's getting -- it may get a deal that may block or delay Iran's path to one or two bombs for the next few years, assuming they don't cheat, but paves their way to many, many bombs after a decade or so, because they become threshold state with full international legitimacy.
And then to boot, they also get a cash bonanza to fund their terrorists and aggression against us, against the region, against America and the world. So, I think this is a very bad deal with a very bad regime. It's not good for anyone's security, not ours, not yours.
DICKERSON: Mr. Prime Minister, in the short run, though, isn't Israel safer? At the beginning of this year, the Iranian breakout time was a couple of months maybe. Now it's to a year. Doesn't that make Israel safer?
NETANYAHU: No, it doesn't, because Iran would have to go against international sanctions that were hobbling their economy. Their inflation rate was 35 percent. They were about to collapse. The economy was in dire straits.
I think that what they have got now is a path that gets rid of all these sanctions and allows them, if they keep the deal, if they keep the deal, within a few years, they are able to break out to a situation where they can get to nuclear arsenal with virtually zero breakout time.
So, Iran is actually on path to a much bigger nuclear arsenal. And, secondly, they're getting a lot of money. Their economy was really stifled. Now they're going to get all that windfall with which they can arm their terrorists, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah around Israel, Hamas, and the various terrorist groups that they support around the world.
DICKERSON: You talk all the other areas that Iran is active in the region.
Secretary Kerry said that the United States is going to -- quote -- "up our game" in terms of pushing back against Iran in those other areas. What would you like to see if the United States was indeed to up its game?
NETANYAHU: Look, I think biggest danger is the dual threat that is posed against Israel, our Arab neighbors.
Many of the Arab leaders who speak to me see eye to eye with me, as does the leader of the opposition here in Israel, that this deal by itself is biggest security problem that we face. I think that the problem with Iran is that nothing has been actually restricted on its behavior.
I offered an alternative. They said there's no alternative to this deal. Of course there is. The first alternative was dismantle Iran's nuclear program for dismantling sanctions. That was the original American position. It was a good one.
I offered another alternative, dismantle part of Iran's nuclear facilities, and don't remove those restrictions until Iran changes its aggressive behavior. But none of these restrictions, forcing them to stop terrorism, forcing them to stop calling for Israel's destruction, forcing them to stop their attacks which have killed hundreds of Americans, forcing them to dismantle the missiles that are there developing for years.
They're not developing these intercontinental ballistic missiles for us. They are developing them for you. And they will be able to tip them with nuclear warheads within 10 or 15 years. That -- none of that has been acquired. So, I think right thing to do is merely not to go ahead with this deal.
There are many other things that could be done to stop Iran's aggression, but making this deal is not one of them.
DICKERSON: I know you're talking to lots of people. You're talking to us, obviously. Will you lobbying members of Congress against this deal? NETANYAHU: Look, I feel it's my obligation as the prime minister of Israel to speak out against something that endangers the survival of my country, the security of the region, the security of the world.
And I obviously make my case. I think that is important. It's not only important for us. I think it's important for the entire world.
DICKERSON: You have said that this is a catastrophic and historic mistake. President Obama once said that he had Israel's back. Do you think that he's betrayed you here with this deal?
NETANYAHU: Look, I appreciate President Obama and the United States' ongoing commitment to Israel's security.
That's always something that's important. But this deal, on this, we have a disagreement, an honest disagreement, a respectful disagreement among friends. I think that people say, well, everybody agrees with this deal except Israel. Not true.
First of all, everyone is united against this deal, opposition and coalition alike. Secondly, many in the region speak to me and tell me how they're worried that this deal will endanger their security in many, many ways.
Thirdly, people say, well, the whole world agrees with it. That's not true. But even if they did, there was a celebrated deal just a few years ago, a nuclear deal. Everybody, the scientific community, the international community, everybody applauded it. It was a deal with North Korea. That proved to be a historic mistake as well.
And North Korea today has dozen nuclear bombs and is on track to get within few years 100 nuclear bombs. I think that this is a repeat of the mistake of North Korea. And what is more, Ayatollah Khamenei, the ruler of Iran, the dictator in Tehran, is saying that he's going to continue his battle against the United States and his worldwide terrorism.
I think we shouldn't give them a reward. This deal paves Iran's path to a nuclear arsenal, and makes the problem of terrorism in the region and in the world much worse by giving Iran billions of dollars for their war on terror machine. Not a good deal.
DICKERSON: All right. All right. Prime Minister, Benjamin, Netanyahu, we will have to leave it there.
We will be back in one minute.
Thank you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: We're back with the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein. We will get back to the Iran deal in a moment.
But I wanted to ask you about the other big story this week. On Thursday, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez went on shooting spree at a Marine facility in Chattanooga, killing five. Do we have any idea, any intelligence about what radicalized Abdulazeez?
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, not at the present time, although that's being investigated.
As you know, a team has been sent to Jordan to explore that further. But, John, in my view, based on what I know so far, this is a classic lone wolf terrorist attack. Last year, 2014, ISIL, or Da'esh, as they say it in the area, put out a call for people to kill military people, police officers, government officials, and do so on their own, not wait for direction.
It could well be that this is that case. Here is somebody who had guns, who knew how to use them, who may have been aggrieved by one thing or another. But this is all changing. And here is how it's changing. It is now possible for people, if they're going to talk from Syria to the United States or anywhere else, to get on encrypted app which cannot be decrypted by the government with a court order.
And this is extraordinarily dangerous.
DICKERSON: Is this the new state of affairs, which is to say there's no way he could have been caught by some kind of a screen? The intelligence couldn't have caught him. So, is this just what life is going to be like now in America?
FEINSTEIN: I think to a great extent it is.
This concerns me very greatly. I have met with the chief counsels of the Internet companies, pointed this out, asked for help. There is also on the Internet a stack of documents that tell you how to make a bomb that goes through a magnetometer, where to sit on the plane to blow it up, suggests some people to kill, and is extraordinarily dangerous.
I have asked the Internet companies to take that off. They will not do it unless they are mandated to do it by law. So you have a predetermined kind of propaganda effort that with a few clicks somebody can get to. And it's very sophisticated.
There's the sort of seduction all about where they do -- if they want to come, come to Syria and train, if not, what they should do in this country.
DICKERSON: Does that mean we have to remove the seduction of ISIS and joining up by going overseas and defeating ISIS?
Does that put more pressure on the overseas piece of this, if there's nothing we can do domestically?
FEINSTEIN: Well, I think it does.
I have said before we're either going to fight them there or we're going to fight them here. And whether degrade and destroy is enough, I think the jury is out. We have been counting on our Sunni Arab neighbors to help. And, candidly, there's been some help, but clearly not enough.
So, I think this is a constant battle and will be a constant battle. And we have to understand that there are lots of people out there who are going to succumb to the words of the propaganda and try to do these kind of things.
DICKERSON: Staying overseas now, let's switch to the deal with the Iranian nuclear program. Do you think the Democrats will support the president on this?
FEINSTEIN: Well, again, I think the jury is out.
I certainly hope so. I believe it's our one opportunity. I believe you can't ignore the fact that you have Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany all aligned. It is very likely that, Monday, if they go to United Nations, they will get approval to proceed.
It is very likely that, regardless of what we do, these nations will drop their sanctions at some point. Now, I listened carefully to what the prime minister of Israel said. And I think it's pretty clear to everybody that America has Israel's back. We give huge amounts of money, $25 billion. We give security help, help with the Iron Dome, help with other sophisticated programs, precision weapons.
And if Israel were to be attacked, this would be major war on our part. Now, here is the point. The point is that you have a moderate elected government that wants to make a change. We will see if this is enough to induce that change.
DICKERSON: We will indeed.
Thank you so much, Senator.
FEINSTEIN: Thank you, John.
DICKERSON: And we will be right back in a moment with the Donald Trump controversy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I supported him. He lost. He let us down.
But, you know, he lost. So, I never liked him as much after that, because I don't like losers.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: But...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Let me get to it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a war hero.
TRUMP: He's not a war hero.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's a war hero, five-and-a-half years as a prisoner...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured. OK? I hate to tell you.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: He's a war hero because he was captured. OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: That was yesterday at the Iowa Family Leadership Summit.
Joining us now is Frank Luntz, who is a Republican pollster and a CBS News analyst. He also moderated that event in Des Moines, which is where he is this morning.
Frank, was that a turning point for the Trump campaign?
FRANK LUNTZ, FOUNDER, LUNTZ GLOBAL: It will be a turning point depending on what he does over the next 24 hours.
I have already had the opportunity to reach out to two separate veterans organizations, one of them a POW organization. And they have told me that they believe that this will be significant. The idea of distinguishing veterans who were captured vs. those that weren't is offensive to them. And they feel that Donald Trump owes John McCain an apology.
This is a big deal because it demonstrates character. It demonstrates judgment. Up until this point, that exchange was because I was asking him questions about the words that he was using and whether they were proper for a presidential candidate.
But that exchange suggested that he really doesn't appreciate the significance of being a POW and what that means in American society.
DICKERSON: Frank, when he was done -- when you were done with your interview, he got a standing ovation. And so I would like you to separate for us the difference between the way voters in the Republican base may think about Donald Trump and the way elites in the party and the press may think about him. Why did he get a standing ovation?
LUNTZ: Well, first off, all 10 presidential candidates got a standing ovation. Second is that only about 60 percent of that room stood for him. The standing ovations for Ted Cruz, for Scott Walker, for Marco Rubio, the standing ovations for Mike Huckabee -- I could go through all of them, Bobby Jindal -- were far more enthusiastic than the one for Donald Trump.
So, yes, he's being accurate. But that's not actually what happened. Second is that he does speak straight. He says it the way it is. And the American people are desperate. Beyond someone who is honest and accountable, the number two attribute that the American people are looking for -- and I do apologize -- my voice is gone from four hours of questioning these people.
The number two attribute is someone who says what they mean and means what they say. And Trump does do that. And his language is very powerful for the disaffected voter. But you still have to ask the question, is this the kind of civility, is this the kind of decency...
DICKERSON: All right, Frank.
LUNTZ: ... is the kind of language that builds a good electoral process?
DICKERSON: Sorry to be uncivil and interrupt you, but we will have to go. We will leave it there.
Frank Luntz, thanks so much.
LUNTZ: Thank you.
DICKERSON: Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: 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. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DICKERSON: Welcome back to FACE THE NATION. I'm John Dickerson.
Gwen Ifill is the co-anchor and managing editor of the PBS "Newshour." "New York Times" magazine chief national correspondent Mark Leibovich wrote the cover story in today's magazine about Hillary Clinton. Ruth Marcus is a columnist for "The Washington Post," and Robert Costa is a national political reporter for "The Washington Post."
Welcome to all of you.
We're going to start with now the reaction to Donald Trump and let's take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICK PERRY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Donald Trump owes every American veteran, and in particular John McCain, an apology.
GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I denounce Donald Trump for that. He needs to apologize to Senator McCain and all the other men and women who have worn the uniform. That's just a disgrace.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The good people of Iowa, the good people of New Hampshire, and the good people of South Carolina are going to figure this out. And here's what I think they're going to say. Donald Trump, you're fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DICKERSON: Well, Gwen, that was all the Republican candidates jumping on top of Donald Trump. Is this -- is this it for him?
GWEN IFILL, PBS: Not necessarily. There are three audiences for what Donald Trump does and says. There are the Republicans who are interested perhaps in getting the people Donald Trump appears, who John McCain's so memorably called the crazies, and that's why you hear people -- someone -- someone like Ted Cruz saying, he's my friend and I'm not going to join into the media effort to denounce him, even though now every other Republican is.
There are the crazies, as they're called, but really what they are, are the shouters, the ones who are angry that people aren't shouting loudly enough. They like that Donald Trump shouts.
And the other audience are Democrats, who are just loving this. And Hillary Clinton gets to make hair jokes about Donald Trump instead of about herself and the -- and because of that, Donald Trump isn't particularly interested in going anywhere. He can't be shamed out of any of this, clearly. And so I think the reaction is, we're going to be through this into the next debate at least.
DICKERSON: Mark, Republicans were pretty slow to criticize Trump when he talked about Mexicans. Here, they were doing it in the same tweet cycle, if that's even a phrase.
MARK LEIBOVICH, "THE NEW YORK TIMES" MAGAZINE: In the same tweet cycle. No, it is -- he, obviously, touched a third rail when you came to John McCain, not specifically, but John McCain as a -- as a military hero. I mean that is something that is, to this point at least, been a universal point of agreement for Republicans, Democrats and what have you. So, yes, I mean, you can -- I mean there's going to be this static around the Mexican comment and then this, which I think gives you a sense of -- part of the reason I think Hillary Clinton's been very, very, kind of deft in exploiting that in the last 24 hours.
DICKERSON: Robert, you've spent some time with Trump and a lot of time with Republican voters out there. Give us a sense of what the real electorate is there for him and that he's keying into and whether there's another candidate that electorate would go to.
ROBERT COSTA, "THE WASHINGTON POST": When I was at that Arizona rally, you got the sense that these are people who are almost a- political. They're not really conservative activists in the traditional sense. They're people frustrated with the political process. They want to see an outsider come in and just be a bull in the china shop.
But the most striking thing to me, being on the plane with Trump, flying from Phoenix to New York, is that there is no John Podesta, no Karl Rove, no senior political elder at his side who can candidly speak to the candidate in a moment of crisis such as this and really tell him how it is. He's surrounded by his --
RUTH MARCUS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think if they did, they'd be fired.
COSTA: Right, that's what I'm saying. He'd say, you're fired. And that's the problem for Trump. He has some ability to hold a crowd. But when it comes to having a political apparatus, he just doesn't have it.
LEIBOVICH: Right. But also, though, I mean I think the reason the quote/unquote crazies love Donald Trump is he doesn't have a John Podesta or a Karl Rove at his side. I mean he has been able to separate himself from the politics and become the other of this race, which is a very coveted spot in this primary.
MARCUS: And I don't think this is the end, but I think, and this may be a little bit wishful thinking, it might be the beginning of the end. But I think what this Trump episode, and I hope it's just an episode, tells us is about two things. One, it tells us something about the state of the Republican Party and the degree of anger and animosity and unrest that a segment of the party feels. And that's bad news, I think for some of the more mainstream candidates.
It also is another one of these hurdles that's in front of the more, let's call them credible candidates, and how they respond to Trump, not just this one, which was really a no-brainer in how to respond to his outrageous comments about John McCain, but in terms of the -- the lag that they've had in responding to his previous comments about Mexican rapist, about whether -- where President Obama was born. Even yesterday, we didn't pay attention to it because of what he said about McCain was so outrageous, he was asked by Frank Luntz whether he thought the president loved America, and he said he didn't know. Come on.
COSTA: There's a reason for that lag, though. I mean this is a leaderless party in many ways.
MARCUS: Yes.
COSTA: Reince Priebus, the chairman, tried to ask Trump to tone it down. Trump, of course, ignored him, continued to plow forward. Who could actually speak up right now and really contest Trump?: This is a party that has a crowded field, no real leader, no presumptive nominee.
MARCUS: People -- people -- the people who can speak up are the people who have a sense of backbone and decency and understand, as Lindsey Graham has been very outspoken on Donald Trump, who have a sense of really what crosses the line and also what, in the long term, is not best for them maybe with these voters but what's best for the party.
DICKERSON: Gwen, you talked to Ted Cruz, who is not -- who is not speaking out. What did you make of him? Is he being blotted out by the Trump -- candidate Trump?
IFILL: It's interesting. Well, I asked Ted Cruz -- this was the day he was going up to meet with Ted -- with Donald Trump, who, that morning had said, I don't know why I'm meeting with Ted Cruz. And so Ted Cruz didn't seem that insulted by that. He said, it's the media which is forcing us to denounce this man. I won't. He's my friend. So he goes up there. They pose for a picture and it's fine. And a few days -- and I -- the other question I asked Ted Cruz was, is Donald Trump even a conservative? Right? This is a good question as -- from someone who is like --
DICKERSON: You mean what does he actually believe about the policies?
IFILL: What does he actually believe about the policy. And he said, oh, well, we'll see. He was willing to say, we'll see about Donald Trump. And then yesterday after this he said basically the same thing. You got to give him points for consistency. But there's someone in the race who's not willing to write him off yet. And part of that is when you've got 15 people competing for the same, narrow slivers, why -- why would you write off any segment of the voting population who might just actually (ph) show up.
LEIBOVICH: And he also, though -- I mean he's also the logical extension of a political system that has come to revere celebrity. Not a political system, a culture that comes to revere --
IFILL: Trump is.
LEIBOVICH: Trump is -- to revere a celebrity on any merit whatsoever. There's no -- there's no standard. And also money, a political system in which money can be (INAUDIBLE).
MARCUS: Are you suggesting a Kardashian's going to throw her hat into the Democratic race?
LEIBOVICH: (INAUDIBLE).
IFILL: Why do you think that that's impossible?
MARCUS: Anything seems to be possible these days.
DICKERSON: But their -- speaking of political celebrity, Mark, you wrote this cover story on Hillary Clinton. And in the cover story you said that -- that she was done with being careful. Is that -- do you think that's true?
LEIBOVICH: Well, she said that last year when she was promoting her book. And she said she found it frustrating. She thought voters found it frustrating. We haven't seen it to this point at all in this campaign cycle. And -- and, look, I mean, there is this weird fetish we have in the political system, especially around people like Trump or even Chris Christie. The celebration of the, I'm going to tell it like it is. I'm the truth teller in this race. And I think a lot of people can see right through that. A lot of people can't.
But I -- look, Hillary Clinton I think for those who have seen her privately and publicly, and even journalists who have seen her in less plugged in setting, will tell you that there is a much different version of the Hillary Clinton that we see on TV.
COSTA: But -- but --
MARCUS: But we're not seeing that version on the --
LEIBOVICH: No remotely.
MARCUS: As you captured, we are not seeing that version on the campaign trail. You watch her CNN interview, which is the only national television interview, and she looked like she was sitting in the dentist chair. This is not a candidate who is running, as Jeb Bush said, joyfully. She's running carefully.
DICKERSON: But just --
LEIBOVICH: Does it matter, though?
DICKERSON: Do people really care about that, though, Gwen?
IFILL: Well, it's interesting when you look at the two extremes of this race. You have Donald Trump, who is appealing to people who inspire to be billionaires, and you have Bernie Sanders, who is appealing to people who hate billionaires, and they're both staking out these opposite ends. Somewhere in the middle, the person is going to be the nominate by the party doesn't necessarily demean billionaires or embrace billionaires. Look at the Wall Street folks who lined up to support Hillary Clinton. This is the sweet spot, everybody, the serious candidates are aiming for.
DICKERSON: You know, another person on that spectrum of wealth is you've got Donald Trump talking about how rich he is and then Scott Walker, Robert, this week, announced for president. He can't go through an event without talking about the Kohl's coupons that he clips. He's running on the sort of the Winnebagos and the discount shirt. What's his -- what's the Scott Walker story? What are his chances?
COSTA: When you talk to Walker's advisors, their sense is, eventually Trump's going to implode and the party's going to look to someone who has a blue collar appeal, a little bit of a populous edge, and they think he's a conservative warrior. He's won three elections in Wisconsin. But they're nervous about Trump. They're nervous about the crowded field. They think as much as he may be an every man candidate, that may not be enough and so they're trying to maybe think, how can they -- how can he become exciting? How can he start to really get more out of his -- his base. IFILL: And what he didn't do was just there on this comment when he denounced Trump and he used the word denounced with less force than I've ever heard it employed. I denounce him.
MARCUS: And this -- this was Scott Walker's week, right? You were there, I think.
LEIBOVICH: Yes.
MARCUS: At his launch. And what are -- we're not talking about Scott Walker.
COSTA: (INAUDIBLE).
MARCUS: We're talking about Donald Trump.
LEIBOVICH: But do voters actually -- does anyone make a voting determination based on who denounced Donald Trump more or less than the next guy?
MARCUS: I think people get of gestalt of how -- what they think a candidate's character is. And my argument would be that that -- how they respond to a piece of their character.
DICKERSON: That's right. It may not be the denunciation, but, Robert, wasn't there an opportunity for someone like Jeb Bush to really promote his brand, which is the, I'm not Donald Trump. They put out a little video this week of Jeb Bush talking about the tone. But wouldn't this have been an opportunity for Jeb Bush to stand up and make a bigger noise?
COSTA: It was certainly an opportunity and how Bush responded tells us a lot about Bush. One, I think he's reluctant, if you talk to his allies, to engage in a major way with Trump, because if you enter a boxing ring with Trump, you could emerge bloodied. I mean at this point in the summer, does Bush really want to have a major fight with Donald Trump? I don't think so. I think when he looks at his own candidacy, he's not someone who's out there fighting. He's not a combative politicians. And he hopes eventually the party comes back to someone who's a little more even tempered.
IFILL: And doesn't he think that also four years ago -- our conversation, that that summer, was about Michele Bachmann, who is not president, last I checked?
DICKERSON: Right. So your point is that you -- are these summer --
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: -- that go away?
MARCUS: There's one other thing that happened this week that I think we should talk about, which is this really bizarre encounter that Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley had, the two other Democratic -- (CROSSTALK)
MARCUS: -- Democratic candidates at Net Roots Nation (ph), where so you have this segment of the Republican Party that seems to be semi-large that's supporting Trump.
But then you had on the other side also folks who are not going to get the nomination being shouted down while they were denouncing billionaires, while they were calling for an increase --
(CROSSTALK)
MARCUS: -- by the Black Lives Matter folks. And that was just the sort of outburst of unreasonableness on the Left side of the party.
IFILL: -- handled terribly well --
MARCUS: And I think --
DICKERSON: -- which would explain the nature of their complaint, though. This is at the base of the Democratic Party.
MARCUS: And they are saying things that the base should be cheering. But there is a group that is shouting them down during their speech because they are not talking only about Black Lives Matter and --
(CROSSTALK)
IFILL: -- to be fair --
MARCUS: -- but they might have gotten to it on their own.
But it seemed to me, watching this week, it was like the extremes of both parties had some kind of secret meeting, where they got together and said, how can we most alienate normal voters? And they did a pretty good job.
DICKERSON: All right, a week of alienation. Hope for harmony and community later.
Thanks to all of you; we'll be right back with some analysis on Iran deal, stay with us.
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DICKERSON: We're back to talk more about the Iran deal. We want to welcome CBS Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Brennan, back to the U.S. after weeks and weeks of being in Vienna with Secretary Kerry; we're also joined by "Washington Post" columnist David Ignatius and Jeffrey Goldberg of "The Atlantic." David, I want to start with you. There's a lot to grab on to this deal.
But what for you stands out in this agreement?
DAVID IGNATIUS, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Listening to Secretary Kerry and the prime minister -- and Netanyahu, my takeaway is that the details of this deal are pretty solid, that it's been carefully negotiated, that it will hold up for 10 years or more.
But the Prime Minister Netanyahu is right. Iran is a dangerous destabilizing force in the Middle East.
So somehow good policy seems to me to use the deal to cap the nuclear threat that Iran would pose for 10 years but work on that other problem. And I wish I heard a little more from Secretary Kerry about how to change Iranian behavior that is so threatening and destabilizing.
DICKERSON: Jeffrey, what do you think is biggest selling point of the deal, the best selling point?
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, "THE ATLANTIC": The best selling point that it's a way, if the Iranians actually don't cheat, it's a way to keep them from developing a nuclear bomb for half a generation or more.
The worst part, just to build on what David is saying, is that the issue is what they're going to do with their windfall. That is the question that we haven't seen answered yet. They could take that money; they're going to get $150 billion potentially out of this.
And the first sort of iteration, they could create havoc or more havoc in the Middle East. And so the question going forward is -- and so this story is not ending -- the question going forward is how are we going to contain them conventionally? We've capped them on the nuclear standpoint. But we haven't figured out a way to contain what they're doing conventionally.
MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: And that is one of the biggest complaints of the Arab allies, who haven't been as publicly critical as Prime Minister Netanyahu has, but privately really worried that this is going to fund other proxy wars, because money's fungible.
Zarif, Iran's top negotiator, will say to you, no, we're going to spend this on reconstruction and infrastructure and the like, right.
But when you talk to the Arab allies, they say, wait a second, the one place we look, Syria, where Iran has extreme influence, we're seeing extreme reluctance from the administration to counter that. And so they're really sort of waiting to see if the administration backs up its promises --
GOLDBERG: A small intervention -- and this is what the Obama administration would say, is that these guys have been pretty good at using their limited terrorism dollars over the past 10 or 15 years to create havoc in the Middle East. So some more money in that pot is not going to substantial change the reality in Syria, Lebanon and so on.
DICKERSON: But why not have the opposite response, which is, boy, they've been efficient with X number of dollars, they're going to be that much more efficient with X plus --
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: What can the U.S. do to -- the president has -- excuse me -- Secretary Kerry says the U.S. is going to up its game in terms of cordoning off Iran in those other places.
But what can they really do?
IGNATIUS: John, the U.S. needs to do two things simultaneously. First, it does need to work with our Sunni-Arab allies so that they're able to push back against Iranian expansion. The Sunnis say the Iranians are controlling four Arab capitals -- Damascus, Baghdad, Sanaa in Yemen ,Beirut. And so pushing back, resisting that is important. And the U.S. has to help them. That's really what the Camp David summit was about.
At the same time, Secretary Kerry and the president believe strongly that there may be a door opening to a broader diplomatic dialogue in part because of this new pressure from the Sunni side that would lead the Iranians in to say negotiations about Syria.
But Bashar al-Assad, their client in Syria, is really on the ropes now. So Secretary Kerry hopes that the Russians will encourage a process where there's a negotiation for a political transition. That sounds great so long as you keep the pressure on because without the pressure it's not going to work.
DICKERSON: Is that Secretary Kerry's next job?
I mean, he has two things, he's got to sell Congress, 60 days to pick this deal apart, but then he's also, as David points out, there's a lot of work to be done overseas for Secretary Kerry.
BRENNAN: There is. He's going to be heading to speak to some of the heads of the Gulf States in early August to try to sell this and back up some of the promises that were made at Camp David that you just mentioned.
But Syria is the big test case for this because it is the place where you are seeing Iran keep Bashar al-Assad in power. And you have seen the Obama administration very restrained and very concerned about what directly confronting Iran there could mean.
So, it's going to be interesting to see what those Arab Gulf States do if they actually follow through in confrontation there.
GOLDBERG: Two quick points, one, President Obama sees ISIS as the real threat in the Middle East, not Iran. Let's just -- I mean, I think that is fair. Not to say that he discounts Iran entirely, but ISIS is the flame thrower.
DICKERSON: And Iran says, now, hey, now that we've done this, we can both join together and work --
GOLDBERG: Which is a dubious proposition but --
BRENNAN: -- the most effective fighting force on the ground.
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IGNATIUS: -- proposition but it's happening.
(CROSSTALK)
GOLDBERG: Right. It's just that you make friends with -- it's a dangerous thing you're doing.
But the second point is that there's an extremely long game here that I think -- President Obama won't talk about, this extremely long game.
But he does seem to believe that Iran could be at a tipping point. The population is pro-American, 30 years of living under the ayatollahs will do that to you. And that maybe this will set in motion a virtuous cycle, in which we see Iran rejoin the community of nations. He doesn't have a lot of faith in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States as true civilizations. We've seen that in some of his statements elliptically.
And so he really does believe that we're setting -- that something is being set in motion here. But we won't see the fruits of that for a long time.
IGNATIUS: John, you made reference at the beginning to the Iranians dancing in the streets after the deal. I just would note that the people dancing in the streets are not the hardliners. They are the Iranians who have been dreaming of joining the world, and, over the long run, that's the thing that's working most to our advantage, that the Iranians want to be part of the world that we live in and they're a political force.
DICKERSON: Right. They're happy the sanctions were gone, not happy that Iran --
(CROSSTALK)
DICKERSON: -- need to be part of the world.
(CROSSTALK)
GOLDBERG: -- Bashar al-Assad.
BRENNAN: But there is a symbolic importance to what you're saying that I think sometimes we miss as Americans, that the proximity of recent history to the Iranian public, they're looking back at all these years of mistrust. And they can read you a long list of where America has done them wrong. And to then be making some sort of rapprochement here and then being told come back out of the cold into the world community means something. It has some significance to the public. And certainly to Zarif.
DICKERSON: David, what do you make of Secretary Kerry's analogy that this is just like the Soviet Union, where the United States would have arms deals with the Soviet Union but also, you know, even Ronald Reagan calling them the Evil Empire, that you can work two tracks here.
Is that -- does that work...
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IGNATIUS: I think it's -- I think it does. We forget just how menacing the Soviet Union was at the time of the arms control deals, how -- how menacing China was. China was, you know, talking about general nuclear war at the time that Henry Kissinger and -- and President Nixon engaged them.
So this idea that you engage your adversaries and that over time, that can have benefits in capping their -- their behavior, history tells us that that's real. I think it's a good analogy to draw.
I wish Secretary Kerry didn't say the alternative to this deal is a war, because we know from history, Russia and China, that, you know, that isn't the alternative. It's a kind of cold stalemate, a bitter confrontation. But it's not necessarily (INAUDIBLE).
DICKERSON: Although, to be fair, at this point, within the framework and the reality that the Obama administration and its allies have created for themselves, if Congress were to com -- subvert this, overruled a veto, let's say, the chances are very slim that Iran and our negotiating partners are going to go back to the table and say, oh, well, Congress wants us to do X, Y and Z now, after we agreed on -- and Z now, after we agreed on this set of principles.
And so we would be slipping toward a kind of confrontation, which, of course is what most of America's allies in the region -- Israel and the Arabs, they won't say this as such, but they kind of hope that we would go back into a more confrontational mode.
DICKERSON: Margaret, I want to ask you a question before we leave here about the drama of this. I mean so many days of negotiation...
BRENNAN: (INAUDIBLE).
DICKERSON: -- nose-to-nose. There was, you know, yelling that could be heard through the doors.
Give us a sense of the drama of this moment.
BRENNAN: I mean it was a roller coaster, in many ways, and you're reading body language and I was telling Jeff earlier, you're reading into whether people are moving hotel rooms and what that could mean about how close they are to a deal.
There were shouting matches and you heard one between the E.U.'s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, Italian born, and Iran's top negotiator, Javad Zarif, which she publicly spoke to later on and that showed up in the Iranian press, the idea, don't threaten an Iranian. Publicly spoke to later on and that showed up in the Iranian press, the idea, don't threaten an Iranian. this is when things got really heated about the week before the deal was struck. And she said, we can call this thing off. You know, we can walk away if this isn't going to happen.
And that's when Zarif said don't threaten me, which quickly became, you know, a -- all over Twitter.
And she went publicly and said, listen, you put an Italian and an Iranian in the same room, this isn't going to stay cold. This is going to get (INAUDIBLE). (LAUGHTER)
BRENNAN: And you had Kerry get into some spars here, too, over the past two years. And, you know, for the Iranians, particularly Zarif, he brought up the fact that the U.S. backed Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and said, listen, I could bring you up on war crimes, don't talk to me about destabilizing the Middle East, look what the U.S. has done.
So there are a lot of nerves and tensions. So it is amazing, regardless of what you think of what ended up in the deal, the fact that they got to one at all and got seven capitals to agree to this diplomatic agreement is pretty substantial.
DICKERSON: David, 40 seconds or so left. Sorry to do this to you.
Give us a sense of how this fits in the Obama legacy, the sense of his world view on foreign policy.
IGNATIUS: From the day Barack Obama became president, literally, in his inauguration address, he has been looking toward this moment in which you would engage America's adversaries on a basis of mutual interests and mutual respect. He can say now that he's done that and that he's got a pretty solid deal, more -- more than people expected.
The question in the remaining year-and-a-half, I think, is, can he be strong enough, this president, to also project power?
Because in this part of the world that's so unstable, that American presence is going to be even more important after the deal.
DICKERSON: And he told you in 20 years, he'll still be around and have to live with this deal.
IGNATIUS: Yes, he -- he's very -- he's very aware that his legacy is riding on this. DICKERSON: All right. That's where we're going to have to leave it.
We'll be right back.
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DICKERSON: That's all the time we have. Thanks a lot for watching. Until next week, for FACE THE NATION, I'm John Dickerson.
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