Ex-Clinton Aide Stephanopoulos Wonders How Edwards Thought He Could Cheat and Run for Office

I haven’t...this transcript from the morning of 9-11

JENNINGS: Hang on, George—hang on, George. I apologize. I’m only
interrupting you because you’re so—OK, you don’t have those sirens behind you.
Go ahead.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The sirens behind me, sorry. I spoke earlier, just a little
while ago, to the spouse of a senior White House official who received a call
simply from the Secret Service saying your spouse is safe, is in a secure
location right now. I remember from my early days, Peter, in the White House,
several senior White House staff are given cards that have evacuation plans for
places to go in cases of a national emergency. And as I said, it does seem to
be there—there does seem to be some indication that that may have been put into
effect. I would just add one more note, you—Ann was talking about the
possibility of the president now doing a teleconference with his—his senior
national security officials.

JENNINGS: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: There are facilities in the White House, not the normal
situation room which everyone has seen in the past, has seen pictures of, but
there is a second situation room behind the—the primary situation room which
has video conferencing capabilities. The—the director of the Pentagon, the
defense chief can speak from a national military command center at the Pentagon.
The secre—secretary of state can speak from the State Department; the president
from wherever he is and they’ll have this capability to video conference
throughout this crisis and my time at the White House was used in the aftermath
of the Oklahoma City bombing. In the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 bombing
and—and that would be the way they would stay in contact through the afternoon.

JENNINGS: Now, just a couple of—of—of—of short questions. Given where the
president has gone from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska; and given that we hear
from the political staff that he’d—they’d like him to come back to Washington,
does the president have any say at the moment, basically, if the Secret Service
says go left or go right or go here or go there?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, the president has the ability to overrule them if he
wants, but I think in this situation, Peter, he would—he would follow their
directions. Obviously pushing them to try to get back as soon—as soon as he
could, if that was really what his political advisors wanted. But—but he
would—he would take their direction on this one. Sometimes you can fight the
Secret Service on, you know, how long you’re going to spend in a rope line but I
don’t think you’d do it on this.

JENNINGS: Okey-dokey. And the other question is in terms of—Dick Cheney,
the vice president, is in the White House now. Just from a purely operational
point of view, if you were trying to run things at the moment, would you like to
be in the White House or in a bunker in Nebraska, or would it make any
difference?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think right now, Peter, it doesn’t make any difference. Air
Force One, and this bunker in Nebraska has complete communications all across
the board. And as I said, my guess is that Vice President Cheney is in that
second situation room. A camera is trained on him, he can see the president,
the president can see him, they can see Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary of
State Powell. It’s as if they’re meeting in one room.

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