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George Soros Pledges Millions to Defeat Bush

Aired November 12, 2003 - 12:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: One of the world's richest man wants to evict President Bush from the White House. And George Soros is putting his money where his mouth is. A spokesman confirms the billionaire philanthropist and a partner have pledged up to $5 million to the liberal activist group moveon.org's voter fund. And Soros is spending some $15.5 million of his own money to try to send George Bush packing.
Joining us now to talk all about these things are two guests. Christine Iverson is the press secretary for the Republican National Committee. Tony Welch, the press secretary for the Democratic National Committee.

Tony, what is going on? It looks like this is a huge effort to skirt around the ban on soft money.

TONY WELCH, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Well, I tell you, we've read a lot about groups like this, the 527s (ph) and so on, and was permissible. And we are looking at...

BLITZER: No one says it's illegal, but the McCain-Feingold legislation, the law of the land, was supposed to stop these huge, unlimited sums of money to get so directly involved in the political process.

WELCH: Well, I tell you, if you think that Mr. Soros is the only one out there doing this type of work, you would be dead wrong. Right now -- it started just recently -- the Alliance to Improve Medicare ran, guess what, $5 million worth of ads to promote the president's position on Medicare. That would be the privatization of Medicare. And so it clearly happens on both sides. So it's not just Mr. Soros who obviously feels very passionate about this president.

BLITZER: Christine, there are a lot of fat cat Republicans out there dumping a lot of money into the political game as well.

CHRISTINE IVERSON, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: A couple of points here. First of all, there are no organizations on the conservative side that have been created solely and expressly for the purpose of defeating President George W. Bush, as they have on the liberal side. Secondly...

BLITZER: For supporting George Bush?

IVERSON: Excuse me -- yes. And secondly, what George Soros is doing is basically making him the single most powerful special interest in Democratic politics today. It violates the spirit of campaign finance reform. Basically...

BLITZER: But it is legal. There's nothing illegal about it.

IVERSON: Well, there may be some questions about that.

BLITZER: Like what, for example?

IVERSON: Well, it is unregulated. It is entirely unregulated. It's undisclosed. And none of this is reported to the Federal Election commission.

People who wanted to get the soft money special interest out of politics should be appalled by what is going on today with what George Soros is doing and what moveon.org and all of these organizations are doing. It violates the intention of campaign finance reform.

BLITZER: Tony, you want to respond?

WELCH: It is only a violation if it is Democrats, apparently, because Tom DeLay has two pacts that -- there is a pending IRS investigation, as a matter of fact, for their improperly disclosing those contributors. And with the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) group again, who is at the bottom of those ads to support the president's position on Medicare? That would be HMOs, not seniors.

THE AARP isn't on that list, but he HMOs were behind it big time. And that would be your constituency.

BLITZER: Here's an e-mail from Anne in Honolulu. Let me let Christine respond to this.

"Soros isn't just throwing money out there. He will be donating 50 cents for every $1 moveon.org raises to beat President Bush. You're making it sound like something more cynical than it is. He is encouraging those of us who don't have a lot of money to give what we can."

IVERSON: You know, people who want to be involved in the political process in an above-the-board way have the opportunity to do that. You can contribute to a Democratic political candidate, you can contribute to the president's re-election campaign.

That money is disclosed on Web pages, where journalists and the public can look at it. It is regulated by the Federal Election Commission. And it is in keeping with the campaign finance laws which were supposed to keep soft money and special interests from having an undue influence on our electoral system.

BLITZER: All right, Tony.

WELCH: We know the name of this contributor, right?

BLITZER: George Soros.

WELCH: We know the amount. What is hidden about it? I don't -- there's a part of it that doesn't make sense. IVERSON: Where is this disclosed, Tony? Is this disclosed to the federal...

WELCH: Well, it's pledged now and we all know about it.

IVERSON: Is it disclosed? How is this money going to be used? Where is it going to be spent? Where is it going to be funneled? What is it going to be used for?

WELCH: Like I said, well, they only have those issues...

IVERSON: How will we find all of that out? We don't know because the Federal Election Commission has absolutely no control over this money, where it is going, and how it is used.

WELCH: Which would be true for Republican 527s (ph) as well.

IVERSON: But there are no Republican organizations created expressly for the purpose of defeating George W. Bush -- or, excuse me, defeating a Democratic presidential candidate. There is no equivalent of this...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Quick question, Tony, before this deteriorates any further. The decision now by Howard Dean, presumably the Democratic front-runner right now, to forego federal funds in the primary, to spend -- to raise as much as he can, to spend as much as he can, a lot of Democrats think that that is a violation of the spirit of campaign finance reform.

WELCH: It's also gong to have to be a choice for each Democratic presidential candidate. We do know, and everyone agrees, that the president will raise a record amount of money for this election. And the candidates have to decide for themselves. And I think that's been the position of the DNC, that the candidates would have to decide which direction they would like to go.

BLITZER: Conrad writes this in an e-mail, Christine. See if you can handle this: "George W. Bush has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign" -- I'm not sure if that's accurate. Maybe he will raise $200 million -- "even though he has no opponent. His campaign was the first to blow off campaign finance limits. It is only fair that the Democrats do whatever they can to counter his huge financial advantage."

IVERSON: There are a couple of things wrong with that. First of all, the president signed campaign finance reform law. And his campaign obviously abides by that.

Campaign finance reform bans corporate contributions. Howard Dean has been saying that the president is funded by corporate contributions. That's absolutely not true.

Secondly, it would be interesting to note that Howard Dean has taken contributions, as have all of the other major Democratic presidential candidates, from employees of major corporations. Howard Dean has even taken a contribution from a board member of Halliburton.

And thirdly, there are limits under campaign finance reform. The Bush-Cheney campaign abides by those limits, as I am hoping and assuming all of the Democratic presidential candidates do. And thirdly, all the contributions to the president are disclosed on the Web site.

BLITZER: All right. Very -- Tony, respond, but very quickly.

WELCH: It will be real quick. I tell you, of course Democrats are abiding by those rules as well. Something very interesting about how much money the president will raise -- $500,000 so far have come from those who have contracts in Iraq. And of course everyone is well aware Halliburton's (UNINTELLIGIBLE) contract there.

BLITZER: You know what? We're going to continue this debate on another occasion. It's been generating a lot of excitement, a lot of interest. And the political season is only just beginning.

IVERSON: That's true.

BLITZER: Christine, Tony, thanks very much for joining us.

IVERSON: Thank you.

WELCH: Thank you.

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