Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC
SHOW: HARDBALL 22:30

September 30, 2004 Thursday

HEADLINE: HARDBALL 2230 Half Hour for September 30, 2004

BYLINE: Chris Jansing; Andrea Mitchell; Joe Scarborough; Ron Reagan; Chris Matthews

GUESTS: Joe Biden; Mike McCurry; John McCain; Jon Meacham

HIGHLIGHT:
President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry face off in their first presidential debate.
MATTHEWS: Well, we are back at the University of Miami. Welcome back to HARDBALL's coverage of the presidential debate. We're live from the campus, the same campus on which the debate was held tonight.

Senator Joe Biden is a ranking Democrat. He's from Delaware. He's the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Senator, thank you for joining us tonight.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D), DELAWARE: Happy to, Chris.

MATTHEWS: What did you think? Who won?

BIDEN: I think you just-I don't think there's any question who won.

I think Kerry won, and I am not just spinning. I mean, look, John Kerry...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: You heard John Kerry I have known for 31 years. And I think he was resolute. He was clear. He was plain. The president was repetitious, somewhat nervous.

And in terms of flip-flopping, you know, the president's mixed messages on Korea, on Iraq, on Iran-I just thought John did a really very, very good job.

MATTHEWS: There's an old expression of Sherlock Holmes. The dog didn't bark.

Were you surprised, Senator, that when John Kerry took a direct shot at Halliburton, the large corporation, how it's benefited from the war, that the president never responded to that charge?

BIDEN: If you noticed, the president didn't respond to any of the charges. The president didn't respond to the charge, for example, on North Korea.

The Chinese, as you know, Chris, wanted us to meet separately with North Korea. The Japanese wanted us to meet. All the parties through the talk wanted us to meet, when the president did not respond to the fact that he, in fact, has only spent a half a billion dollars of the $18 billion in Iraq. The president, he didn't respond to anything.

But he had a thematic notion, and maybe that's how presidential debates work-I never got to one-but, you know, saying that you flip and you flop. Well, the fact of the matter is, he didn't respond to anything.

MATTHEWS: Do you believe the people of Iraq and the Arabian world generally are afraid that we have long-term ambitions in Iraq, and therefore John Kerry was right tonight, we have to make it clear we are coming out of there sooner or later?

BIDEN: Absolutely, positively, and so does Colin Powell think that, and so does John McCain think that, and so does everybody who knows anything think that.

I mean, one of the reasons why we, in fact, argued early on, all of us, Democrats and Republicans, that we had to get NATO in there, that we had to move to make this international, was to make the case to the rabid nationalists in Iraq that we weren't there as long-term occupiers.

And repeatedly, repeatedly, the president has squandered every opportunity to communicate that message, including communicating it on Iraqi television, including communicating it to the Iraqi people.

MATTHEWS: Let me repeat something the president said tonight a number of times. And I want to know how it hit you. You cannot lead in the world if you send a mixed message.

Isn't that still a tough tag on John Kerry, that he has changed his positions on Iraq numerous times?

BIDEN: Well, but John hasn't changed his positions numerous times.

But the mixed message being sent by the president of the United States of America was, we want our allies, but let's eat freedom fries on Air Force One. We want everybody to come in and help us, but no thank you, Germany, we don't need your help. We want U.N. in there, but we are not going to provide the security force to get the people in there to be able to hold the elections.

We want the Iraqi people to have sovereignty, but we are going to give them Chalabi. We want-there's so many mixed messages. Or to use the word that Dick Lugar used a couple Sundays ago on a program we're on, why aren't things going well on the ground? Incompetence.

The incompetence of this administration since the statue of Saddam Hussein has fallen has sent incredible mixed messages. And, Chris, I don't ask-you are a neutral newsman, but everybody in the world knows there are two positions in this administration. There is the Powell position, and there's the Cheney-Rumsfeld position. And never the twain have met.

And the rest of the world, when I go abroad, they ask me, literally, who is in charge? Who is in charge? And so the ultimate mixed message, Chris, is that this president has sent repeatedly mixed messages. I want you to come and help us, but, by the way, not now. I need your help now, but you get no part of this. I want you to come in and train troops, but you can't have any part of any contracts.

I mean, come on, mixed messages. This is the biggest mixed message

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Senator, with all respect, if the world-if there's people in the world who still think that Colin Powell is calling the shots, they are not paying attention, are they?

BIDEN: Well, that's true. No, they are not now.

And I think, by the way, unfortunately, the world has figured that out. And, for example, the president said tonight, we trained 110,000 troops. Even Rumsfeld, in his misrepresentation, says we trained 90,000, when in truth, we have only trained 8,000 fully, and we have not trained one single-we have not trained one Iraqi policeman, fully trained him yet, not one.

And in testimony before my committee, the State Department acknowledged that. We better start leveling with the American people or they are going to leave us.

MATTHEWS: We love having you on, Senator. Thank you, Senator Joe Biden, ranking Democrat on Foreign Relations.

Coming up in the next hour, NBC's Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert with their assessment of what we all saw tonight from the two candidates.

We'll be back with our group-talk with the undecided Ohio voters what they thought about tonight's debate. We'll be back with that in a moment.

HARDBALL's coverage continues live from the University of Miami.