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CNN Live Event/Special
Schwarzenegger Addresses Reporters
Aired September 24, 2003 - 22:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Schwarzenegger, as you can see, is at the podium, talking to reporters. So we'll listen in a bit on that.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: ... comfortable with policy. And the second one is to show which in direction I want to take the state. I feel that I accomplished both of those things. It was also, at the same time, very entertaining and fun to sit out there. And I think that, you know, this was a really -- a successful debate for me and for our camp, and I think that we are moving right along now towards October 7. If you have any questions, please ask questions. Yes?
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) or so, obviously, the other candidates were going after you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Did you expect that? And what do you think (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, I expected that they will go after me because I'm the frontrunner, so that's always what happens when you're the frontrunner, that people shoot for you. And -- but I was, you know, aware of that, and I tried to just keep it totally under control and get my message out, which was very important, in which direction did I want to take the state and all those kind of things. And of course, Arianna was, I think, very entertaining. And as someone said afterwards, right after the debate, You guys should go on the road with your comedy show and all those things. So that's where it was.
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes. Absolutely. But what I wanted to do is, you know, let people know where I am with job creation, how strong I feel about getting the economy back, how strong I feel with all of those things, with the -- you know, creating equality here, how strong I feel about education, equality in education in the inner cities and all other places, and also to get the textbooks out there, to give the children the opportunity. I think I got all those points out there on what we ought to do to some of the questions that never came up.
QUESTION: What you did you think of the format (UNINTELLIGIBLE) QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: I think the format was good. I think it was good the way it moved around and the way it became lively and where you could interact and all those things. I thought it was terrific. And you know, all of those there, you know, were, I thought, very gentleman-like, you know, and yet the great thing was with Senator McClintock, you know, that he and I agree on so many issues, which was good. And on some issues we don't, but I mean, on many, many issues we do. And I think we could make a good team in Sacramento. I'm looking forward to working with him.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Why only one debate? Why are you only appearing in one televised debate and not the rest of them?
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I think that as you can see, the other debates that were on had only one share ratings and stuff like that. And this is going to have a high rating. You will see that tomorrow when you see the numbers. So you know, the important thing is that everyone can watch this debate, and every day is a debate. Every day I go out there, I talk to -- we have news conferences, and I talk to the people. I talk -- I do interviews and all this. So every day is kind of a debate. We don't need to travel around and do this, you know, up and down the state and do it all the time. This was terrific. I was looking forward to that, and I felt good about it and I feel good about it now. So that was the key thing, to get the message out there.
(CROSSTALK) QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, please? Go ahead.
QUESTION: Once again, have you asked McClintock to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) your campaign? There's still this rift between you and McClintock, and the Republican Party people say (UNINTELLIGIBLE) You've heard this before.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first, let me just say that he and I didn't have a chance to talk about that today. But this is -- again, I go back to what I said before, that this is a decision that he has to make. I am not going to make that for him. I respect him. He's a terrific guy. And so, you know, we will see what happens the next 14 days.
(CROSSTALK)QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, right here, please.
QUESTION: Could you clarify your position on health insurance (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, well, it is a decision that has been made already. I mean, it's...
QUESTION: Could you clarify your position?
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) SCHWARZENEGGER: My decision is exactly what the law is right now. I support that, and you know, we have to move forward. What my position is, is now is, is to move forward and to adopt the McCain -- Senator McCain's bill, which is the Border Security and Immigration Act, which provides certain kind of visas for temporary working permit for temporary workers and also for those that came here before August of 2003 and that are law-abiding citizens and have not had any criminal record and are working at this time. They should also apply for -- they should also...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Excuse me. They should also apply -- be able to apply for those visas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more question. One more.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: ... Proposition 187? When did you change your view about education and health care (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, 187 was more a question about getting federal money, not to throw anyone out of the country or do anything like that. The meaning of it was because the federal government has consistently not participated in funding those kind of costs. And so that's what this proposition was about. When I become governor, you can be sure that I will go to the federal government and demand more money from them because -- in general more money because we are paying -- for each dollar that we are paying in federal taxes, we only get back 77 cents. We want to get more of that money back. There's billions of dollars, more than $50 billion they are not giving us. So I will collect that. This is why I said many times when I am through with my term as governor, I will be known not only as the terminator but as the collectinator.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, thank you.
QUESTION: ... for California State University and University of California (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: The 40 percent increases? The fee increase. Yes. Well, I disagree with that because I feel very strongly that it is unfair to go and have and a hike first for 10 percent and then for 30 percent more or 11 percent and 30 percent more, whatever it was. It is over 40 percent now, the increase, in one year. What message does this send to our students? What message does it send to the parents of the students? We want to promote education. We want to promote higher education. And what I would do is that if they need an increase, it should be a gradual increase, a cost-of-living increase or something like that, so we don't have to hit the students or the parents with that one shot to the -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sharp increase.
(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, thank you. Thank you.QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: But I didn't say rollback. I didn't say rollback.
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) your thoughts on that.
SCHWARZENEGGER: OK. Say again?
QUESTION: The format of this debate and your thoughts on how it all went.
SCHWARZENEGGER: I think the debate went terrific. I thought that I got my views out there, so people know where I stand with the certain -- certain of the issues, what I want to do with the economy, that I feel very strongly that we have to bring the economy back. We have to create a positive business atmosphere here so people want to come back from other states.
Right now, I mean, you talk to some of those people from the other states, from Nevada and Arizona and New Mexico, they say, Please keep Gray Davis in there because he's our best recruiting officer. We want to reverse that. We want the businesses to come back to California. That's what I want to do because with more businesses, we have more jobs. We have more jobs, getting the economy stimulated, we then have more revenues. And that's what we need right now.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHWARZENEGGER: OK, thank you very much. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired September 24, 2003 - 22:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Mr. Schwarzenegger, as you can see, is at the podium, talking to reporters. So we'll listen in a bit on that.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: ... comfortable with policy. And the second one is to show which in direction I want to take the state. I feel that I accomplished both of those things. It was also, at the same time, very entertaining and fun to sit out there. And I think that, you know, this was a really -- a successful debate for me and for our camp, and I think that we are moving right along now towards October 7. If you have any questions, please ask questions. Yes?
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) or so, obviously, the other candidates were going after you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Did you expect that? And what do you think (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, I expected that they will go after me because I'm the frontrunner, so that's always what happens when you're the frontrunner, that people shoot for you. And -- but I was, you know, aware of that, and I tried to just keep it totally under control and get my message out, which was very important, in which direction did I want to take the state and all those kind of things. And of course, Arianna was, I think, very entertaining. And as someone said afterwards, right after the debate, You guys should go on the road with your comedy show and all those things. So that's where it was.
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes. Absolutely. But what I wanted to do is, you know, let people know where I am with job creation, how strong I feel about getting the economy back, how strong I feel with all of those things, with the -- you know, creating equality here, how strong I feel about education, equality in education in the inner cities and all other places, and also to get the textbooks out there, to give the children the opportunity. I think I got all those points out there on what we ought to do to some of the questions that never came up.
QUESTION: What you did you think of the format (UNINTELLIGIBLE) QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: I think the format was good. I think it was good the way it moved around and the way it became lively and where you could interact and all those things. I thought it was terrific. And you know, all of those there, you know, were, I thought, very gentleman-like, you know, and yet the great thing was with Senator McClintock, you know, that he and I agree on so many issues, which was good. And on some issues we don't, but I mean, on many, many issues we do. And I think we could make a good team in Sacramento. I'm looking forward to working with him.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Why only one debate? Why are you only appearing in one televised debate and not the rest of them?
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I think that as you can see, the other debates that were on had only one share ratings and stuff like that. And this is going to have a high rating. You will see that tomorrow when you see the numbers. So you know, the important thing is that everyone can watch this debate, and every day is a debate. Every day I go out there, I talk to -- we have news conferences, and I talk to the people. I talk -- I do interviews and all this. So every day is kind of a debate. We don't need to travel around and do this, you know, up and down the state and do it all the time. This was terrific. I was looking forward to that, and I felt good about it and I feel good about it now. So that was the key thing, to get the message out there.
(CROSSTALK) QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, please? Go ahead.
QUESTION: Once again, have you asked McClintock to (UNINTELLIGIBLE) your campaign? There's still this rift between you and McClintock, and the Republican Party people say (UNINTELLIGIBLE) You've heard this before.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first, let me just say that he and I didn't have a chance to talk about that today. But this is -- again, I go back to what I said before, that this is a decision that he has to make. I am not going to make that for him. I respect him. He's a terrific guy. And so, you know, we will see what happens the next 14 days.
(CROSSTALK)QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, right here, please.
QUESTION: Could you clarify your position on health insurance (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes, well, it is a decision that has been made already. I mean, it's...
QUESTION: Could you clarify your position?
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) SCHWARZENEGGER: My decision is exactly what the law is right now. I support that, and you know, we have to move forward. What my position is, is now is, is to move forward and to adopt the McCain -- Senator McCain's bill, which is the Border Security and Immigration Act, which provides certain kind of visas for temporary working permit for temporary workers and also for those that came here before August of 2003 and that are law-abiding citizens and have not had any criminal record and are working at this time. They should also apply for -- they should also...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Excuse me. They should also apply -- be able to apply for those visas.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One more question. One more.
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: ... Proposition 187? When did you change your view about education and health care (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, 187 was more a question about getting federal money, not to throw anyone out of the country or do anything like that. The meaning of it was because the federal government has consistently not participated in funding those kind of costs. And so that's what this proposition was about. When I become governor, you can be sure that I will go to the federal government and demand more money from them because -- in general more money because we are paying -- for each dollar that we are paying in federal taxes, we only get back 77 cents. We want to get more of that money back. There's billions of dollars, more than $50 billion they are not giving us. So I will collect that. This is why I said many times when I am through with my term as governor, I will be known not only as the terminator but as the collectinator.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, thank you.
QUESTION: ... for California State University and University of California (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: The 40 percent increases? The fee increase. Yes. Well, I disagree with that because I feel very strongly that it is unfair to go and have and a hike first for 10 percent and then for 30 percent more or 11 percent and 30 percent more, whatever it was. It is over 40 percent now, the increase, in one year. What message does this send to our students? What message does it send to the parents of the students? We want to promote education. We want to promote higher education. And what I would do is that if they need an increase, it should be a gradual increase, a cost-of-living increase or something like that, so we don't have to hit the students or the parents with that one shot to the -- (UNINTELLIGIBLE) sharp increase.
(CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, thank you. Thank you.QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: But I didn't say rollback. I didn't say rollback.
QUESTION: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) your thoughts on that.
SCHWARZENEGGER: OK. Say again?
QUESTION: The format of this debate and your thoughts on how it all went.
SCHWARZENEGGER: I think the debate went terrific. I thought that I got my views out there, so people know where I stand with the certain -- certain of the issues, what I want to do with the economy, that I feel very strongly that we have to bring the economy back. We have to create a positive business atmosphere here so people want to come back from other states.
Right now, I mean, you talk to some of those people from the other states, from Nevada and Arizona and New Mexico, they say, Please keep Gray Davis in there because he's our best recruiting officer. We want to reverse that. We want the businesses to come back to California. That's what I want to do because with more businesses, we have more jobs. We have more jobs, getting the economy stimulated, we then have more revenues. And that's what we need right now.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHWARZENEGGER: OK, thank you very much. Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
