Preparation for State of the Union
BLITZER: To our viewers, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM where new pictures and information are arriving all the time.</s>ZAHN: Happening right now, President Bush getting ready to inform the nation about the State of the Union in this, his sixth address. He's expected to discuss health care, energy, the environment, and the issue on virtually everyone's mind, the most explosive issue, the issue of Iraq.</s>BLITZER: And tonight, Paula, the president will do something he has never had to do during his presidency. He'll stand before a Congress in which both Houses are controlled by Democrats. Amid growing opposition to the president's Iraq plan from Democrats, how will Mr. Bush be received?</s>ZAHN: Well, tonight's Democratic response will be delivered by a relatively new face in Congress, newly elected Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. And he has a unique reason for speaking out about the Iraq war. He'll tell us about that a little bit later on. I'm Paula Zahn.</s>BLITZER: And I'm Wolf Blitzer and you're in</s>THE SITUATION ROOM. ZAHN: On Capitol Hill right now anticipation building for President Bush's State of the Union address. Of course, we will bring it to you live along with the Democratic response.</s>BLITZER: The White House is hoping Mr. Bush can take some of the pressure off on Iraq by turning his attention to several critical domestic issues, but that may be, may be an uphill battle. Our senior national correspondent John Roberts is standing by. He's</s>HENRY: That's right. And tonight, Wolf, the president wants to take a schematic approach. He doesn't want a laundry list of dozens of policy initiatives. He wants to try to pick off a handful of issues where the White House believes he can come up with what they call big and bold ideas, just a handful of domestic issues, as you said, shift the focus just ever so slightly from Iraq. Chief among those ideas a plan called 20-10. The president wants to cut gasoline consumption by a whopping 20 percent over the next 10 years. He wants to do this through billions of dollars in research into renewable fuels, also reform the so-called cafe or fuel-efficiency standards for cars. The president will say tonight in this excerpt, quote, "For too long, our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes and to terrorists who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy. It is in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply and the way forward is through technology." But Democrats like Senator Chuck Schumer already saying this is really not so big and bold. The president for example in the fuel efficiency standards, just really laying out goals. Not really putting in mandates. Also, on the issue for climate change, the president in a first for him will actually address the issue of the climate change, but will not actually call for caps on CO2 emissions. That falls short of what environmentalists were calling for. Also worth noting, same time, this time last year, and last year's State of the Union address, the president also said we were too dependent on foreign oil. Nothing really happened in the last Congress even though it was in Republican control. Now that it's in Democratic hands, even harder for the president to pass something like this 2010 plan, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right Ed, stand by. We're going to be getting back to you. As we watch all of this unfold, Paula, Americans certainly watching the president's speech at home tonight may be hard to please. We have got some new numbers. Our new poll numbers shows that President Bush's approval rating at a time of each of the state of the union addresses. Check this out.</s>ZAHN: As you can see if you look closely at our graphic here, public opinion of the way Mr. Bush is doing his job has gone down year after year from a high of 84 percent in 2002 to 34 percent tonight.</s>BLITZER: So how might this State of the Union be different or similar to others?</s>ZAHN: And what do members of the president's own party think he has to accomplish with this address? Joining us now from Capitol Hill is our senior national correspondent, John Roberts -- John?</s>JOHN ROBERTS, CNN SR. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good evening to you Paula, good evening to you, Wolf. You know, I have covered five State of the Union speeches given by President Bush, covered one with President Clinton. And there's no time that I can remember when going into a State of the Union address, the president has been in such difficulty and so under fire, as President Bush is right now. His approval rating is in the dumper. The fact that Congress has now changed hands. You know, even Bill Clinton didn't have this problem in 1995 because his approval ratings were still pretty high. I talked to some Republicans about what President Bush needs to do, and they said that he needs to prove tonight that he's not a lame duck. He needs to show that he's relevant. He needs to reach out to Democrats. He needs to challenge them. He also needs to show that he wants to work together with them. Now how might that manifest itself in his legislative agenda? Well, there's a possibility that he could reach out in a bipartisan way and get the Democrats to come along with him on immigration because frankly, the Democrats are closer to where he is on immigration than the Republican Congress was. And he's probably got a better chance to get something passed with the Democrats in control. Health care and education though, he's already getting a lot of blow-back on that from Senator Ted Kennedy, who doesn't believe the No Child Left Behind Act has been funded enough. In fact, there were some figures floating around a couple of years ago that there was a $40 billion deficit in the funding there. People also don't like this idea of a tax hype for health care. He's going to get blow back from Republicans and Democrats on that. And of course, Iraq according to Republicans I talked to, has just crippled literally everything that the president has been trying to do. They say that if you can work together with people, but it's very difficult when they're jumping down your throat every day on Iraq. And they believe that the president has a very short time to turn things around on Iraq. They say, when the appropriators start taking up the 2007-2008 budget this coming fall, that's potentially when President Bush is going to have some problems. So Wolf, it's a very, very high bar, and I just have got to say, covering this president as I have for the past six and a half years, he's just in a position of difficulty that I've never seen him in before.</s>BLITZER: And he's got his work certainly ahead of him tonight. This note to our viewers, John, in the next hour is going to be moving from Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill right into the House of Representatives chamber. This is going to be a first. He's going to be reporting from inside. He'll get a bird's eye view, Paula, of what's going on. This is going to be very cool to get one of our own reporters inside, not just all those congressman and women.</s>ZAHN: so if there's something really indelicate that happens verbally, he will be the guy that will be able to hear it.</s>BLITZER: He'll be right inside, our viewers ought to stay tuned for that.</s>ZAHN: But everybody on the Hill will be very well behaved tonight.</s>BLITZER: We're going to get some more now on the State of the Union in our "Strategy Session." And joining us, we've got two strategists.</s>ZAHN: And we know them both. Paul Begala, Democratic strategist. J.C. Watts, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma. I assume that means you're still working for the Republicans, right?</s>J.C. WATTS, FORMER REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN: I'm still onboard. Getting kind of heavy, but I'm still onboard.</s>ZAHN: I want to put back up on the screen the staggering poll showing that this president goes into the State of the Union address with a 34 percent approval rating, the lowest of any president on a State of the Union night. Now I am told by some Republicans that he's going to kind of not worry about his base tonight, but really try to reach across the aisle and maybe speak to Independents and some Democrats who might be on the fence tonight. Is that going to work?</s>WATTS: Paula, that 34 percent number that we saw in the poll, I don't think that number says we don't like you. I think that number says that we're not...</s>ZAHN: ... It doesn't say we love you.</s>WATTS: But the number says -- you asked the question. Let me answer it now. I think the number says we don't like the direction of the way things are going in Iraq. And I think they're saying, show us how we're going to get out of this. And I think I have said before, if the benchmark is more Americans losing their lives and more money being spent, if that's the benchmark, I'm surprised those numbers aren't lower. And that's what the numbers have been. I think the president is trying to come up with a plan. I think he's going to but pressure on the Democrats. He needs to continue to do that. Put pressure on the Democrats to say we can't afford to lose this war. So I don't think the numbers are saying they don't like him. They're saying, we just don't know where you're taking us. You have to show us a better way.</s>ZAHN: You've got Paul rolling his eyes here. You don't buy that at all?</s>WATTS: Paul's supposed to do that.</s>PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: It's in the data. It's not just the war, which is enormous. It's him personally. And this has got to be a source of grievance to the White House. If you look at -- I looked at the "Washington Post" poll. They ask a lot of personal questions. 54 percent say he's not a strong leader, 55 percent say he has not made America safer, 56 percent say he can't be trusted in a crisis, 57 percent say he's not honest or trustworthy, 59 percent say he's not an effective leader. They don't like him personally. And the problem is, we have been through a lot with him now. The American people know him. Two presidential elections, two congressional elections, two wars, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, we know him. I don't see a way out. I met my wife when I was 19. We have been together 25 years. If she's through with me, there are no new moves I have got for her. I mean, she's seen it all out of me. And if she's through with me, I'm through.</s>BLITZER: But the Democrats potentially have some treacherous ground they have to navigate as well.</s>BEGALA: It's a good point, they do. And the country, I think, wants the Democrats more to rescue President Bush than crush him. I think they are sort of through with him. But they are going to look to the Democrats then to show some leadership, work with him when they can, but also maybe intervene. You know, if you have a friend or someone you love, who's got a problem drinking or gambling or something, you have an intervention. I think people want Democrats in Congress and Republicans to have an intervention with this president.</s>ZAHN: Well, the Democrats I talked with today to aren't talking about rescuing the president. They're talking about three days of heated debates about a nonbinding war resolution that will tell the president they hate where he is on this issue of increasing troop involvement in Iraq.</s>WATTS: And Paula and Wolf, if you would look at Democrat numbers, their numbers would probably be just as poor simply because their plan is to be against the president's plan. And concerning Republicans and Democrats, against the war, Paula it's tough trying to execute a war, Republican or Democrat president in a political environment. Those people who are coming out against the war, they have elections in '08. So the Democrats, it's to their advantage to be against anything that the president does. Republicans, they're not going to string them. They're not going to walk the plank for the president considering they're up in November '08. A third of the U.S. Senate, every one of the Republican House members. So that's going to make it very challenging for this president to try to get something done in a very short legislative time.</s>BLITZER: We've got to leave it right there. But right behind you, you can see a familiar sight to you, J.C., as a former member of Congress. Statuary Hall, you see all the statues on the outside of those walls over there? That's why they call it, Paula, Statuary Hall, in case you didn't know that.</s>BEGALA: It was once the House chamber.</s>BLITZER: You knew that?</s>BEGALA: Absolutely, that's where Abraham Lincoln served in the House of Representatives.</s>BLITZER: And members walk through there to go inside the House and our John Roberts is there, as well.</s>WATTS: Paul could have gotten you in there.</s>BEGALA: Finally, my people are in charge for the first time in a long time.</s>ZAHN: When you walk through there, there has to be a chill you get, particularly on the State of the Union.</s>WATTS: It's a special feeling, it is, yes, it is.</s>BLITZER: All right guys, stand by because we're going to be getting back to you as well. Up ahead tonight, we're following all of these developments. We're also following the seating chart. This is going to be fascinating for tonight's State of the Union address. It reflects clearly some big changes in Congress. We're going to show you what it looks like.</s>ZAHN: And we're going to have a reality check on the president's past speeches. What he hoped for versus what he got. We're getting ready for President Bush's State of the Union speech. You can see it live here as well as the Democratic response. Please stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.