SPEAKERS: SEN. JOHN KERRY, D-MASS.
DON IMUS, HOST
CHARLES MCCORD, CO-HOST
BERNIE MCGUIRK, CO-HOST

IMUS: Please welcome to the "Imus in the Morning" program the great senator from the commonwealth of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Good morning, Senator Kerry.

KERRY: Good morning, Don Imus. How are you?

IMUS: How are you?

KERRY: I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling well.

IMUS: You don't care.

KERRY: I do.

Of course I do, because it affects the hell out of my appearance on this show.

(LAUGHTER)

(UNKNOWN): Amen.

IMUS: I was talking with Jon Meacham earlier, the editor of Newsweek.

KERRY: Yes, he's an intelligent guy.

IMUS: He said, "Ask Kerry how he feels about being pretty much, you know, ostracized by" -- not just you, but they did the same thing to Gore. Any of these Democrats that lose these elections, are ostracized by the party and everybody else.

I mean, some of them overcome it -- maybe Gore has a little bit with his movie and so on. But...

KERRY: I think he's done superbly. I think -- I mean, he's obviously laid out the map. They've got to go out, do a movie, win an Oscar and then you come back.

(LAUGHTER)

IMUS: How do you feel when everybody wants you to -- what? -- just go away?

KERRY: I don't worry. Listen, it comes with the territory. I'm not -- I mean, I just don't worry about it.

You know, it's a funny thing, I mean, obviously it's -- it's not the most fun in the world, but on the other hand, it's -- it just it does. It goes with the territory, that's what happens.

And I don't think you worry about. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Listen, if I worried about that stuff, Don, I wouldn't have gotten up in the morning a couple of years ago when I was 30 points behind and everybody had written me off.

You just keep going, things will change.

Look, if the Dixie Chicks can come back and win five Grammys, there's hope.

(LAUGHTER)

IMUS: Yes, I was happy about them.

I thought they got screwed and I didn't think what she did was -- but that's irrelevant. They shouldn't have done to them what they did.

KERRY: I thought it was terrific that they won. I mean, I think they've always been a terrific group.

IMUS: Now that you've decided you're not going to run, is everybody being nicer to you?

KERRY: Yes.

(LAUGHTER)

IMUS: They are?

KERRY: Sure. Absolutely. That's the ways of Washington.

But anyway, you know, I got good news for you. I was -- my stepson got married on Saturday night down here in Washington and Harold Ford was at the wedding. And his girlfriend was with him. I thought you'd be thrilled to hear that.

IMUS: Harold Ford's girlfriend?

KERRY: No. That he had a girlfriend, because I heard you the other day going on about Harold Ford and meeting your wife in a hotel, this and that, so I just wanted to put your mind at rest.

IMUS: I'm trying to get Harold Ford married.

KERRY: Well, it looks -- maybe he is on that track.

IMUS: I'm trying to get him to marry Diedre.

(LAUGHTER)

No, just a little joke.

KERRY: Well, listen, I was worried that the way you guys were going at each other, she might be available.

IMUS: Man, she's a -- well...

KERRY: Now, now.

IMUS: Senator Obama announced on Saturday. Did you watch his speech?

KERRY: I did not, actually. No, with all the wedding stuff we were doing.

IMUS: He was -- I mean, the context of his speech was like all the speeches that you guys give, it was nonsense, but...

(LAUGHTER)

KERRY: Thank you. That's good to know that we have such an impression on you.

IMUS: Oh, please. Like that "reporting for duty"; I still have nightmares about that.

But anyway, but he was marvelous in the way he delivered it -- maybe it's not nonsense, I'm just kidding around.

But have you seen any of it or do you care?

KERRY: Of course, I care. Obviously, I care.

No, I read the reports on it and it looked like it was a terrific start. Impressive and impressive setting.

I think he's been clear, I think he's exciting.

And it will be interesting. I mean, there are a lot of qualified folks out there and they have been good friends of mine and I'm going to watch with great interest.

What I care about, Don, and I think you do to, and others do, is that there's a clarity to the priorities that they're setting out for the country. And obviously, priority number one is getting out of Iraq in a thoughtful, intelligent way.

This war has got to end. And it's just setting us back in the region, it's hurting most of our interests. And so I think people are going to look with great interest at what all of the candidates are saying.

IMUS: I don't see how this -- here's one you can hit out of the park: I don't see how the surge works, do you?

KERRY: No. I mean, I've said that from day one.

I think it's an escalation and a very dangerous one because it just invites a lot more targeting of American troops, it puts American troops out front, when the whole purpose of what we ought to be doing is pulling them back from that kind of a role and leveraging the role of the Iraqis.

I just don't think this is going to do it.

I mean, there were more bombs yesterday -- every day, there are just more bombs.

You know what infuriates me is front page of The Washington Post this morning, a story about the lack of armored Humvees. These guys going out. They say they won't have enough of them until the summer time.

What are these guys supposed to do in the next months? Go out there in adequate protected status?

I just get so angry about that.

IMUS: I just asked Charles and Charles doesn't have an answer either. Well, not that he should, but...

KERRY: Well, you know, I don't want to go backwards, but I'll tell you, when we were going up the rivers in Vietnam and -- you know, it was the same kind of mission. You'd go up, you'd, sort of, be out there, you'd show the flag, you'd attract an ambush, you'd get shot at, you'd get your medevacs, you'd get your guys out and you'd turn around and look at each other and say, "OK, what did we get done?"

And I just read the paper this morning: exact same report from Engel and NBC who, you know, went out with these guys and they had an IED go off near them.

KERRY: And they all come back and they look at each other and they ask the same question: "What did we just get done?"

And I think that it's -- you know, there's only one way this thing going to be resolved. And that's by a negotiated political settlement that resolves the fundamental issues. If you don't resolve them, the civil war continues.

IMUS: No reasonable person I know, on either side of the aisle, thinks this surge is going to work.

My question is: Do you think -- it's a two-part question: Do you think that the administration thinks it's going to work?

Or do you think -- and this would be a cynical view -- that it's just a dog-and-pony show to get them to the point where they can say, "Well, we tried and it didn't work, and now we're out of here"?

KERRY: I think it's a little bit of that, coupled with the hope -- not that they think it will work; they hope it will work. I think there is a hope. I think they've been persuaded by some people, the architects of this, that it's the last best shot, if you will. And they obviously have to take that shot.

So they're hoping that it will be successful, but I don't see how, in effect, that it ultimately will be.

And nobody's wishing for it not to be. We'd love it to be. But the fundamentals underneath it are not being addressed.

I mean, there's another big story today about -- I think it was in the Times -- about the rise of Shiaism, which is something I've been talking about for the last months, after reading this book by Vali Nasr, called "The Shia Revival," which is a great book. It's just explains the whole thing as clear as a bell.

IMUS: Let me write that down so I can be sure and get that.

KERRY: The guy's name is Vali Nasr.

IMUS: I'm just kidding, Senator. I'm just being sarcastic.

(LAUGHTER)

What, Charles?

KERRY: I thought you read these things, Don.

MCCORD: Yes, why wouldn't you want to educate yourself regarding the headline -- you're right, Senator Kerry -- in The Washington Post, above the fold, "Across the Arab World: A Widening Rift Between Sunni and Shiite, Not Just Iraq but Everywhere"?

KERRY: Thank you, Charles.

IMUS: OK, what's the title again? I'll make Charles read it...

(LAUGHTER)

MCCORD: I probably will.

KERRY: He probably will. He will.

IMUS: ... and then explain it to me.

(LAUGHTER)

KERRY: But you know, this thing -- I don't know if you've followed it -- with the Pentagon and this intelligence, you know, scandal about the...

IMUS: Yes.

KERRY: ... walk-up (ph) -- I really think that we ought to get Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and the crew to come in and testify before the Congress and share with us what went on in that period.

Because if Feith is not prosecuted because they say there was no criminal activity because he was following orders from above, I want to know who those orders were from and why they gave them.

IMUS: Well, that's a good question, and a worthy goal to -- but I mean, anybody who doesn't understand that these folks were lying from day one is naive, I think.

KERRY: Well, we ought to have accountability, don't you think?

IMUS: And you guys who voted for this should have known better, because we did, and we're not even in Congress.

KERRY: Well, I'll tell you something, Don. I hear a lot of that, obviously, and I heard a lot of that two years ago.

IMUS: You guys were afraid not to vote for it.

KERRY: Beg your pardon?

IMUS: You were afraid not to vote for it.

KERRY: No. I disagree with that. I've heard that said before, but I absolutely disagree with that.

And I'll tell you point blank, it was a tough vote. But I went over to the Pentagon personally, because I had questions about the intelligence.

And they sat there, Donald Rumsfeld at the table, the chief of intelligence, these guys. They passed the photographs around. They explained to us, or told us, what were specifically in those photographs.

And on Sunday night before the vote, I had a long conversation with Colin Powell, who because of the Vietnam experience, because of the Powell doctrine, because of his integrity, I trusted. And he told me that they were going to go through the process of the inspections and the other things.

I thought that the Scowcroft, Bush 41 crowd had, kind of, won out in the process.

Now, I was wrong. And it was a mistake. But that's what I believed. And I did it based on judgment. And obviously, it was wrong.

IMUS: If this surge doesn't work, why wouldn't you all be prepared to cut off funding?

KERRY: I think what you want to do -- you want to end the war. Look, step number one, yes, if it doesn't work, you've got to get out of there.

The question is, how do you do that, Don?

And it seems to me, when you look at what's happening in Lebanon -- I was just there a few weeks ago, and it's a stand-off. Hezbollah is stronger than it's been in years.

You've got huge interests with respect to Hamas and Israel and what's happening in the West Bank. There is a rise of radicalism in Islam. We have serious interests with respect to allies and other strategic interests in the region.

What you want to do is negotiate a new security structure that redeploys our troops in an intelligent way, that doesn't put them in the front of these IEDs, that doesn't put them into the homes of the Iraqis, that is truly there as an emergency buffer, as an effort to chase Al Qaida, but changes the deployment so significantly that we effectively ended the war and created a new security structure.

KERRY: That's the intelligent way to try to do it.

And I think you shouldn't be -- I think you have to set a date -- a specific date by which that major redeployment will take place. And that's how you leverage a change in behavior in the region.

IMUS: Senator Obama is suggesting March of '08.

KERRY: I suggested one year from now; that's February, March. That's about the same date. And that's exactly what I put in last year. There are more of my colleagues now coming to that position and I think we're going to have a very strong debate on that.

I think you have to set a date. And I've actually started an effort nationally. We have a Web site called setadate.com. And people are now energizing around this notion that you've got to change the entire structure and that's the way to do it.

IMUS: You think Senator Obama's quit smoking?

KERRY: I said he was eating nicotine all day, right. I guess he's trying.

IMUS: Eating that Nicorette stuff?

KERRY: Yes.

IMUS: I finally stopped chewing that after 15 years.

KERRY: I thought you still chew that.

IMUS: No. You know, I was out at the ranch in December and I -- my breathing was so horrible there that I ran out of it and I had to -- I would have had to walk from one end of the hacienda to the other and I didn't have the energy to do it. I really didn't.

KERRY: You're kidding.

You really get that affected by the altitude?

IMUS: Oh, it was horrible. So I just sat there by the fire and I said, "Let me see long I can go without chewing a piece."

So it's been about a month and a half.

KERRY: No kidding?

IMUS: I've gone a month and a half without chewing it.

KERRY: I know a lot of people who get addicted to that.

IMUS: I think he's not being truthful.

KERRY: Who's that?

IMUS: Obama, about quitting smoking.

KERRY: Oh, you do? Well, I don't know.

IMUS: I mean, I hope he is, but...

Do you have to pick somebody to support? Or what do you support? You will support somebody, right?

KERRY: I will. At some point, I suspect I will. At any rate, I'm not going to do it in the near term, I don't think.

IMUS: Definitely not going to be Edwards, right?

KERRY: Is that your judgment?

IMUS: Well, I mean -- no, I mean, I'm just speculating that you're not going to support Edwards.

KERRY: Well, I'm not going to speculate yet. I'm going to take a look hard at what happens in the next months and -- I care about it. Obviously, I care about it. I've invested a lot in it. I came within 59,000 votes. It matters to me.

But I want to see what happens and I want to respect the voters and the process of people, kind of, having a chance to take a look.

IMUS: I don't know who has it. I mean, there are only three people who have any real chance: maybe her, maybe Obama and maybe Edwards.

But Edwards said some icky stuff about it. Did you hear about that?

KERRY: I beg your pardon?

IMUS: Edwards said some icky stuff about you, so you can't support him.

KERRY: I don't pay a lot of attention to people.

IMUS: I mean, he was, kind of, trying to blame you and we don't need that, so...

KERRY: No we don't, and I'm glad you're on my side on that. Thank you.

IMUS: Yes, I am.

KERRY: But you know what does matter to me -- because I know you said you're going to vote for him -- John McCain is one of the architects of this escalation or surge? And all of the Republicans -- all of the Republicans -- are supporting this war.

IMUS: I -- what did I say I was going to do about McCain?

KERRY: Vote for him.

MCCORD: Well, yes. Why do you have to even ask (inaudible)?

KERRY: Well, you're stammering now.

IMUS: No, I'm just saying that at that particular time -- I mean, you know, you have to look around and say, "Yes, I am going to vote for him."

KERRY: Oh, my God. I'm not hearing.

IMUS: I'm just kidding around.

I voted for you, Senator.

KERRY: I know you did and it's one of the best votes you ever cast.

(LAUGHTER)

IMUS: Aren't you and your wife in a book? I guess you are.

KERRY: Well, I think we're coming on -- we have -- the promos are coming on. In fact, you're going to be our first big public show. We're coming on and talking about it sometime next month.

IMUS: Is she going to be here with you?

KERRY: She is coming with me. First time she'll have ever been on your show.

IMUS: Does she know I called her a phony?

KERRY: I haven't told her that.

(LAUGHTER)

I want to get her there.

(LAUGHTER)

IMUS: Let's not do that, OK?

KERRY: I won't do that.

(LAUGHTER)

IMUS: Thank you very much.

Thanks, Senator.

KERRY: It's terrific to be with you.