<...>
KERRY: Barack Obama was in constant touch with Secretary Paulson almost every single day, sometimes several times a day, for the last two weeks.
Barack Obama was the first person to speak and lay out at that meeting at the White House, for about seven or eight minutes, the entire parameters of what we have resolved.
John McCain, when offered the opportunity to speak, passed. He didn't speak till the very end and, when he spoke, did not offer a solution and did not say what he would support.
The fact is that on a Monday of about a week ago, John McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." Within a few days, John McCain was suspending his campaign because of the greatest crisis since World War II.
He suspended his campaign, and it took him 22 hours to get from New York to Washington, a one-hour flight, had time to go do Katie Couric in an interview, had time to give a speech to the Clinton Millennium.
And when he got here, he wound up — I mean, end he was going to interrupt his campaign to come down and save the negotiations. Most people believe what he did was interrupt the negotiations to come down and save his campaign.
WALLACE: All right, let me...
KERRY: And he offered nothing...
<...>
WALLACE: Let me ask you about that, Senator Kerry, because the fact was, as Senator graham pointed out, that although they thought that Obama did better, when it came to the question, "Who do you trust more on Iraq, who do you trust more on national security, who is better prepared to be president," people still prefer McCain.
KERRY: Yes, I understand that, Chris. But
what's important is there are five weeks left here before the election.GRAHAM: That's fair.
KERRY:
And Barack Obama closed that gap very significantly on John McCain's home turf. This is not important for us to sit here and say who won, who didn't.GRAHAM: That's right.
KERRY:
You know what's important, is to look at the real difference between them. John McCain, I think, represented an old view of the world, and Barack Obama represents a 21st century view of how you make America safe, and I think that's what people began to see.
The test here is judgment. We're electing a president of the United States who will make the right decision. John McCain, with respect to Iraq, was a cheerleader for the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
John McCain was out there, even ahead of the Bush administration, saying that Saddam Hussein was creating in Iraq an assembly line for weapons for Al Qaida. He was saying that they were very aggressive in their creation of a nuclear program.
So the bottom line is Barack Obama got it right. Even Secretary Gates in the last days has said the real focus now is western Pakistan and Afghanistan, which Barack Obama, for a year, has been saying, and John McCain even today reluctantly says is a new focus of the war on terror.WALLACE:
But you wanted to talk about the economy. Let's...
KERRY: Well, I'll talk about both.
WALLACE: Well, do. So let's talk...
KERRY: I think they're important to leadership.<...>
KERRY: No, absolutely not. If you look at his health care plan, which John McCain mischaracterized, calling it a government plan, you will see a plan that is entirely a market-based, market-oriented, free-choice plan, nobody mandated to do anything. So the answer is no, that's not true.
Secondly, if John McCain is so against government, you know, involvement in health care, does he vote against Medicare? That's a government plan. Does he vote against Medicaid? That's a government plan. Is he against veterans health care system? That's a government plan. So there's a lot of demagoguery here.
I'm going to finish this. You know, this whole earmark thing is demagoguery. We're all against earmarks that are put in in the dead of night that don't clear a committee. That's absolutely wrong, and everyone in Congress will vote to shut — in fact, we already have, said that shouldn't happen.
But you know, he got $150,000 for a Greenville community center. He got $150,000 for a Florence community center.
GRAHAM: Absolutely.
KERRY: I'll tell you what. Those are good projects. And the people in Florence and Greenville deserve them.
Sarah Palin asked for $3 million for DNA of seals in Alaska. I mean, let's cut out this game. $18 billion — John McCain offered a solution to the economy to freeze everybody's spending except for veterans and defense.
Now, guess what? He didn't ask those executives at the top to take a freeze. He didn't say that we would have no tax cut to the billionaires in our country. He didn't say the oil companies should give up their piece.
I think Barack Obama is the only person in that debate who talked about real people in America who can't pay their mortgages...
WALLACE: All right.
KERRY:
... can't pay their tuition, can't pay their health care, can't pay home heating costs. And John McCain has a hatchet...WALLACE:
Senator, I'm invoking cloture.<...>
KERRY: Let me just finish. Let me — let me finish, please. Lindsey gets to finish. I want to finish.
Here's the deal. From the get-go here, from day one, Barack Obama made clear that he talked about adequate preparations for any such encounter.
And those preparations obviously involve either an ambassador, a back channel, a special envoy, a secretary of state, who would have laid the path for that sit-down. What he said was the principle here is what is important. He is prepared to engage and negotiate.
And this administration has not been, and John McCain has not been. In fact, George Bush today had — has already done the very thing Barack Obama has said he would do. George Bush sent William Burns, assistant secretary of state, to go to Geneva to sit down with the Iranians without precondition.
And the fact is — I mean, I sat with former president Khatami at a conference. We happened to be seated next to each other.
In the course of my conversation with him, as a United States senator and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I must have heard six things that were opportunities to pursue on a diplomatic level that might have made a difference in what we're trying to do today.
Those are the kinds of things Barack Obama wants to do. And what he does is he reserves the right as president, which a president ought to, if he thinks he can make America safer and advance our interests, to sit down with any leader. That's smart.
And the policies that have stiff-armed Iran, stiff-armed North Korea, have led us to be less secure in the world, Chris. The fact is the administration is now sitting down with North Korea. They're doing the very thing I proposed in a debate with George Bush four years ago and he said, "Oh, no, no, no, we can't do that."
WALLACE: No, that's not true. You talked about unilateral — I don't want to go back to...
KERRY: I talked about bilateral...
WALLACE: You talked about unilateral...
KERRY: I talked about bilateral.
WALLACE: Right, bilateral between — and the fact is...
KERRY: And that's exactly what...
Wallace was doing his best to shill for McCain. What an ass!
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