Bill Clinton On The Bailout

CBS

Transcript

We are live at the Sheridan Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The Clinton Global Initiative about to start its fourth annual meeting. Mr. President, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us. What people at home, I'm not sure, understand is the enormity of this economic crisis. The president came on television last night and I want to know if you can help explain whether or not we really are looking into the abyss. John McCain said this is the worst crisis in the country since the end of World War II. Is it this bad? I think it has the potential to be this bad because in the end all financial transactions in all countries rest in part on confidence. That is your local bank, for example, will ensure your account up to $100,000 a little more. They are only required by federal rules and never have been required to keep more than a certain amount of if you will cash reserves which is much less than it would take to cover all the outstanding obligations of the bank. Uh this is facilitates economic growth. This is not risky subprime mortgages and derivatives and all that funny stuff. When people lose confidence in everything down to the point where money market accounts seem unstable and banks won't loan each other money. That's bad. uh we need to do some things to insert confidence back into the entire financial system part of which is the stock market but all it also includes the financial system and uh I thought actually I listened to the president's speech last night and I thought it was well constructed to explain to people why there was a problem today with all the financial system and why therefore we needed to act the question people are asking out in the world and you hear these congress Congressman stand in the in the in in the Congress and talk about my constituents want to know why I should write or at least be build for more than $2,000 for each and every human being in this country to help bail out these folks who were so reckless w with this money. Well, you don't want to you don't want to do that. We we have to be careful not to have unjust enrichment. And I think the members of Congress have made that clear and both candidates for president have made that clear. They put out a joint statement I thought which was encouraging last night. But here's how it would work. If uh if you want to keep a company afloat that's made some improvident investments. Uh some of them one Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail going to bankruptcy. uh and some of those same people you're worried about are taking up their assets at bargain basement prices with uh AIG the big insurance giant uh I think that's going to be more typical. The government did loan them a lot of money but they took an 80% ownership comp interest in the company and they have to pay back with a pretty hefty interest rate. So I think that by stabilizing that company the taxpayers will actually wind up making money. We made money when we helped Mexico. We made money in the Chrysler bailout and in more to the point in the Great Depression when we kept a million people in their homes, the taxpayers made money. That's why I think the Congress should take a day or two to analyze this to make sure that's the way it's done. That instead of subsidizing the undeserving, we use this to stabilize the economy as a whole and help those homeowners that are hardworking people. Does this have to be done in the next 48 hours? I you know I don't know about I don't have a stopwatch but because it's a confidence issue like Warren Buffett yesterday put $5 billion in investment into Goldman Sachs. That's a confidence builder. People think he knows what he's doing. He got a pretty good deal too. Yeah, he he got a real good deal, but people think he knows what he's doing. Maybe that bought him another day. But the point is it has to be done in a timely fashion. I think what they want to do is to guard against unjust enrichment, protect the taxpayers, maximize the stability, and keep as many people in their homes as they possibly can because that will really save the economy and turn us around again if we don't have uh we're going to have 2 million homes foreclosed on this year. We don't want that again next year. And is that going to be the single most important issue that this election hinges on? I don't think so because uh President Bush invited both the Senator Obama and Senator McCain to come back be part of the congressional briefings work on this together. Uh I think they need to be attentive to it and you know fulfill their responsibilities in the Senate and as the nominees of their party. Uh but the larger issue is how are we going to bring the economy back? How are we going to create jobs and raise incomes? Uh that's the long-term stability that is there was too much investment in housing alone. We need a strategy here that will get America back across the board. Uh that includes dealing with the with the energy issues, dealing the bills people are paying for that and the job opportunities there, dealing with healthcare that I think those big issues I think will tend to overcome the international issues. And who provides that best plan, do you think? Well, I'm supporting Obama, as you know, and I think that this was the gimme. This is the gimme. I think for the reasons I said in Denver, I think that uh that he personally and our party generally tend to produce better economic results for ordinary people. And I think that that uh while I Senator McCain, as you know, I like he's a friend of mine. I I I trust him in many ways, but the Democratic uh economic philosophy and Obama's specific proposals I think will produce better results for ordinary Americans. Mr. President, uh we have talked many times in the past about the clo uh Clinton Global Initiative. I hope you'll uh let us take a rain check and have a more further discussion about it. Uh we're doing great here. We're helping a lot of people. Thank you so much. [Music]

Bipartisan Bailout Effort

CBS

Transcript

amid dire warnings from President Bush Congressional leaders say they're getting closer to an agreement on a bailout plan as Senators Obama and McCain get set to head to the White House later today CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill plant is there Bill good morning morning Maggie President Bush who has stayed in the background and let his treasury secretary handle this crisis has now stepped into the drama and sounded an alarm he warned that if the candidates in Congress fail to reach a bipartisan solution the nation faces Di consequences ultimately our country could experience a long and painful recession fellow citizens we must not let this happen explaining why the financial system needs a $700 billion bailout Mr Bush addressed popular reluctance to spend taxpayer dollars given the situation we are facing not passing a bill now would cost these Americans much more later in Congress members of both parties have been reluctant to act because of public outrage the American dream is gone for me you know I just can't save for house where do you put the money at I have a lot of trouble with the fact that they're bailing out a big business that made a lot of mistakes the president signaled that he would go along with some of lawmakers key demands congressional oversight and a cap on Executive pay for any company which gets Federal help on the campaign Trail John McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign including tomorrow's first debate with Barack Obama to return to Washington we must meet as Americans not as Democrats or Republicans and we must meet until this crisis is resolved the president has invited both candidates to meet here today with him and Congressional leaders Obama accepted and will be here but he refused to postpone tomorrow's debate I think there's no reason why we can't be constructive in helping to solve this problem and also tell the American people what we believe and where we stand and where we want to the country in an attempt to at least appear not to be playing politics with the bailout issue the two candidates released a joint statement Wednesday evening agreeing that this is a time to rise above politics for the good of the country and come together to prove that Washington is once again capable of leading this country the meeting gets underway here this afternoon and hopes are now raised for a solution at least by the time the markets open on Monday morning although it probably has more to do with the willingness of the administration to accept some of the key Provisions wanted by both sides in Congress than with the appeal of the president Maggie cbs's Bill plant thank you Bill joining us now from St Louis is CBS News Chief Washington correspondent and host of Face the Nation Bob Sheaffer Bob good morning good morning I think everyone's happy to see the candidates talk about the economy but yesterday Barack Obama was publicizing the fact that he called John McCain on the phone first to try to come up with a joint statement Senator McCain was publicizing the fact that he decided to suspend his campaign and urge Senator Obama to do the same which has a lot of people wondering whether this is more political than genuine concern for the economy well there's no question there's some theatrics and some politics in this but I think the thing that everybody agrees on is the severity of the the real concern that people are having on both sides uh about the economy itself and about the financial underpinnings uh of the country when you hear a con conservative president like uh uh George Bush last night talking about U the possibility of a financial meltdown uh if uh these steps aren't taken you've got to take that with some seriousness uh I am told Maggie that the way that uh McCain got involved in this in the first place the treasury secretary was briefing Republicans in the house yesterday the Republican conference asked how many were ready to support the bailout plan only four of them held up their hands uh Paulson then called according to my sources Senator Lindsey Graham who is very close to John McCain and told him you've got to get the people in the McCain campaign you've got to convince John McCain to give these Republicans some political cover if you don't do that uh this uh whole bailout plan is going to fail so that's how McCain apparently became involved uh he has gotten what he wants he's going to have this meeting kind of a summit today with the president and Barack Obama I'm told that the leaders of both parties are getting close to having some kind of a bill the question though is whether Rank and file Republicans especially are going to vote for this and another huge question is whether the debate will go on Friday as scheduled Senator McCain has said he will not be there unless an agreement is reached Senator Obama has said he will regardless so what happens I think we'll have to uh wait see what happens today uh my belief and my feeling is from talking to people on all sides is if they can at least make some progress on coming together then the debate will go on as scheduled on Friday night you know there are some people though uh who are saying that uh the McCain people are really nervous about the vice presidential debate Sarah Palin against Joe Biden which is schedule for next Thursday they are suggesting that maybe the McCain people would be very happy if they could postpone this presidential debate scheduled for Friday and substitute it for the vice presidential debate uh uh next Thursday now I'm just telling you I can't get that confirmed but it is some of the talk that is going around here we'll just have to wait and see what happens here today all right Bob Sheaffer in St Louis thank you [Music]

Obama On Bailout Plan

CBS

Transcript

late this afternoon I talked to Senator Obama about the bailout and his concerns well it's not exactly clear uh what happened was when I left Florida landed I had heard the news that in fact a deal was was there uh people are not obviously happy that we got here in the first place and we shouldn't have gotten here in the first place uh you know it's a consequence of of Speculator greed but also uh Washington not paying attention uh and and Regulators being asleep at the switch so there's resistance but there had been at least some core principles that were met I think that from the Democratic perspective we just want to make sure that this is helping the small businessman make his payroll people keeping their money market accounts that we don't see a cratering of the credit markets that could end up leading to enormous job loss and and obviously it's pretty frustrating for Democrats uh having seen the mismanagement that's been taking place over the last several years uh to feel like uh we've got to step in and get something done but but that's how I think many of us feel that that we can't uh worry about how we got here now we've got to take some serious steps you originally seemed to dismiss the idea of coming to Washington as Showmanship saying it wasn't really necessary to inject presidential politics into this process have you changed your mind do you think it was worth your time coming to Washington it's important not to my preference is to use the phone uh and to talk to people and work with them including secretary Paulson chairman bernacki and others in a way that's not a photo op because I think sometimes that prevents things from getting done it's amazing what you can get done when you're not looking to try to get credit for it

Senator: No Bailout Deal Yet

CBS

Transcript

this way all I can say we had a uh interesting meeting with the president the vice president uh Senator Obama's Senator McCain and a lot of the leaders in the banking uh Committees of both houses I can tell you uh I don't believe we have an agreement I have voiced my concerns all along I don't know if you have this but I have a five page five pages of the leading Economist in America that wrote to me and the lead ership saying the Paulson plan is a bad plan it will not solve problems it will create more problems we're rushing to judgment that we do have stress in our financial markets but this is not the best way we ought to look at Alternatives this is not me this is Economist at Harvard Yale MIT University of Chicago our leading universities five pages it ought to tell you something I brought it up in the hearing I'm probably not welcome again but goodbye what we constitute an agreement uh we hadn't got an agreement uh there's still a lot a lot of different opinions uh mine is it's flawed from the beginning I said that the other day at the at the Banking Committee I asked uh chairman Paulson I mean secretary Paulson and chairman manaki had they considered other Alternatives some of you recall silence they hadn't but they should what wait well I had I'm not in the house it's been a while since I was over there I had seen it but can you share with us a little bit of the tenor of the meeting that senators and Obama par they were they were Senator McCain and Obama were being senators and a member of the body they were very courteous to each other and very respectful the agreement with that dot announced this morning well that's that agreement is obviously uh no agreement okay