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MATTHEWS: John Kerry, the man in that picture, has won tonight in Missouri, Delaware, Arizona, North Dakota and New Mexico. I spoke with John Kerry earlier tonight. Here's what he had to say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: The most impressive number... SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Chris. MATTHEWS: ... we saw tonight, besides the results of the actual primaries and caucuses, was an exit poll question that said that roughly 80 percent of the Democrats who voted today in many of the states would be satisfied if you were the nominee. It looks like you are getting closure already around your possible nomination. KERRY: Well, Chris, that-I'm gratified by that, but it's also premature. I mean you have got to go step by step here. And you know I have said all along you take nothing for granted. I'm not. I'm out here in Washington fighting hard for every vote and I'll be moving east tonight overnight and will continue to fight. MATTHEWS: Do you expect to have a fight in Michigan? You are ahead there on something like 50 points ahead as of today's poll, yesterday's poll in Michigan... KERRY: Well I don't trust that. MATTHEWS: ... over John Edwards. Is that a fair estimate of how it stands there? KERRY: I don't trust that. No, I really don't. And you know I am always very suspect about polls. I'll be in Michigan this week and I intend to be there fighting for every vote. And I'm gratified though that I think what's happening, Chris, is that people across the country are coming together around one notion. They want a change. They don't like the direction George Bush is taking the country. This latest budget I think is almost a fraud. I mean it doesn't include Medicare expenses, it doesn't include a permanent tax cut, it doesn't include the war in Iraq. How can you budget like that and tell the American people you are telling the truth? I think we have, you know, a real need to lead the country in a different direction and that's what I think people are reflecting to him. MATTHEWS: What do you think is up when the administration says they are going to put through a supplemental of $50 billion after the election so the American people will learn about the price tag of the war after they vote? KERRY: Well there you go. I mean you have just said it tonight, and I intend to say it through the election, but it's classic. You know they have come late to the table, Chris. When I walked out of the speech after 9/11 that the president gave and he announced Tom Ridge to head up some new security effort, I said that night you have got to give it line item authority, you've got to give it a department, you've got to give it a budget. It was almost 16 months before they moved to create the Department of Homeland Security. On the 9/11 Commission, they not only came late in creating the commission, but they have been stonewalling it as we go along. Now the president wants to inspect our intelligence, but he wants to move it beyond the election. He doesn't want it to be, you know, done quickly, as it could be, and with the Congress even sharing in the appointment so it's an independent study. I think the American people are tired of this. I think we're going to continue to offer a very different brand of leadership that will make our country safer, put people back to work and be fiscally responsible. MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about something big that happened today, the Secretary of State Colin Powell said-was asked if he had been informed that we did not have weapons of mass destruction that were in Iraq. He's not sure he would have supported the war. How did that strike you when you heard that today? KERRY: That's exactly what Colin Powell said to us in the Foreign Relations Committee. People need to go back and look at his testimony before our committee. Senator Sarbanes and I both asked him questions in which he eliminated every other pretext for going to war other than the weapons of mass destruction. And the fact is the administration itself promised us that they would build an international coalition, they would honor the U.N. inspections and they would go to war as a last resort. They did none of those things. And I intend to hold the president accountable for that in the course of this race. MATTHEWS: Four out of 10 people who voted in the Democratic primaries in our exit polls said that the president talked-deliberately-the administration deliberately told something that wasn't true about the weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. How does that strike you? Does that number seem to be going up? KERRY: Well I think it is, because I think it reflects accurately that they told us that there were weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in 45 minutes. That clearly wasn't true. They told us that there were aerial vehicles that could deliver those weapons. That has proven not to be true. They told us about the sort of nuclear program. That has already been proven to not be true, and they have had to apologize for saying it. So they obviously misused information and misled the American people. And the question now is what is the state of our intelligence? Is our intelligence so bad, was it misled, was there clientitus, did they encourage exaggeration? I think the American people need to know the answers to those questions. (END VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: Clientitus, that's the word of the night. We're coming back with our panel and more on John Kerry's five-state win. How is he going to wrap it up? We're going candidate by candidate, the four major candidates, to see how their plans are to win this thing. You're watching HARDBALL's live coverage of the battle for the White House here at late night on MSNBC. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) Content and programming copyright 2004 MSNBC. |
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