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MATTHEWS: Why did we fight it? What do you think the true motivation was? It wasn‘t WMD, was it?
CUOMO: One of the most significant interviews I‘ve ever seen was on a television show a few weeks ago. It wasn‘t yours, but it was NBC. It was Tim, when President Bush actually said this.
Yes, we were probably wrong about the complicity between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Yes, we were probably wrong about WMD, but, no, we weren‘t wrong to go to war, because he was a barbarous person. Now, he said this a year after the war, knowing that we had lost 1,000 men and women, that the Iraqis had lost maybe 10,000 people who were innocent, that we had 100,000 more people there, that we had lost the whole world‘s respect.
He knew all of that and sat there and said, I would do it again, in effect. Well, either he lied—and I‘m not willing to believe that. That‘s God‘s judgment. I don‘t know what was in his heart and soul. But if he didn‘t lie, it was the most grotesque mistake by a president in history.
MATTHEWS: Why doesn‘t he admit that?
(CROSSTALK)
CUOMO: He went—because he can‘t, because if he were to sit and tell the people, look, I made a terrible mistake, how could you possibly let him be president again?
Incidentally, he did make a mistake. Either it was a sinister plot, and I won‘t say that, or it was a grow terrific mistake. In either case, how can you allow him to be president and do it again, when what he said, in effect, is, I would do it again under the same circumstances? It‘s not an imminent situation. It‘s not an imminent threat. You don‘t have weapons of mass destruction, but you‘re a bad guy and you might some day do it to me. That‘s what preemption means.
MATTHEWS: Right.
CUOMO: To have that as the preemptive doctrine against North Korea, against Iran, a moment of madness, without checking with anybody, that will bring him down, if nothing else does.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: This doctrine of preemptive attack, this whole notion of forward leaning, the lingo of this, the WMD, the regime change, all this new language we‘ve learn in the last years, do you think that‘s him or it‘s the people around him, starting with Cheney and Rumsfeld and their deputies, people in the National Security Council? Do you think there‘s an ideology around him that‘s so strong on this whole question of us against them that he was overwhelmed by it, or do you think it was clearly his policy?
CUOMO: No, I think he was pushed by these people.
But I think he started with his own—this is a terrible word—perhaps naive. He hadn‘t traveled around the world. He hadn‘t been in international affairs like his father. And remember what he said before he became president, no nation-building for me.
MATTHEWS: Right.
CUOMO: Well, forget about it now. What are you crazy? Nation-building? We‘re the hegemon, baby. We‘re going to be—we‘re going to stay here and get rich.
MATTHEWS: Right.
CUOMO: See, what is now clear is, he is simply too simple, to the point of being simplistic. He thinks all you have to do is be strong, have a strong army, and you‘ll beat anybody. You can‘t win the terrorism war with an army. You obviously can‘t or Sharon would have won it a long time ago in Israel.
You can‘t win it with just an army. Sure you need an army. He thinks you can solve the economic problem by giving all his rich friends a lot of money and they‘ll invest it for you and 140 million people will go to work. Well, that‘s obviously not true. He‘s simplistic. He may be utterly sincere. You know, he talks about wedge issues. Wedge is a good word for the tools he uses. The simplest tool known to mankind is the wedge.
MATTHEWS: Right, but look at how effective it‘s been politically. He says cut taxes to help the economy go. Fight the enemy with everything you‘ve got, even if you have to jump them and have a surprise attack on them. Jump them, preemptive attack. And the American people say, yes, that‘s called strength. You call it simplistic. They say it‘s clearheadedness.
And you‘ve got Kerry on the other side, who voted for authority to fight the war, but didn‘t say he was actually for it.
CUOMO: Well, let‘s go back. Now you say to the American people, because now you have your turn, you Democrats, and you say, look, he says, tax cuts produce jobs.
They don‘t produce jobs. They don‘t produce a good economy for you. They may produce economy for themselves. And tax cuts to the wealthiest people, which is not going to be spent on consumption? What makes the economy go is consumption, buying goods and services. When you give a person who‘s a supermillionaire more money, he or she doesn‘t spend it. They just hide it.
MATTHEWS: Right.
CUOMO: They put it away. And so we say this. We want tax cuts? Yes, for you 140 million workers. Let‘s take the $1 trillion back from the rich people, who do not need it. Remember his first rationale in 2001? I‘m giving the money back because we don‘t need it.
MATTHEWS: Big surplus.
CUOMO: Well, he was wrong.
MATTHEWS: Well, he was right then, but the surplus has disappeared.
CUOMO: OK.
So then now if you want to be intelligent, I was wrong, let me take back the $1 trillion and spend it on health care, tax cuts and education for 140 million workers.
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