Reply #6: Transcript: Sen. John Edwards on 'FOX News Sunday' [View All]

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TONY SNOW, FOX NEWS: Joining us to talk about his presidential candidacy, from Lafayette, Louisiana, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Senator Edwards, Wes Clark joins the fray this week, immediately goes to the top of the list, at least in polls. Senator Joe Lieberman calls him a counterfeit Democrat. What do you think?

SEN. JOHN EDWARDS, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, D-NC: Well, I think anybody who got in the race this late and got some attention, particularly in this crowded field, would be expected to pop up as a result of that publicity. The same thing happened to me back in January when I first announced.

I think we're now entering the serious stage of this campaign, where every candidate needs to lay out their specific ideas. And for me, that means real opportunity for everybody, doing things to lift up the middle class, college for everyone, making sure every young person in America has health care.

I mean, I think it's incumbent on General Clark and all of the candidates to lay out their specific ideas, because I think that's what the voters are looking for.

SNOW: Well, you've heard General Clark take several positions on whether he supported the war in Iraq some months ago, the resolution of which you supported.

EDWARDS: Yes.

SNOW: You have heard the quotes of his praising the president and his entire foreign policy team as recently as May 2001. This has led to concern on the part of some Democratic candidates that this guy's a Wesley-come-lately. What do you think about his credentials as a Democratic candidate?

EDWARDS: Well, I'm going to let General Clark defend his credentials. I disagree strongly with the things he said a couple of years ago about President Bush, about Rumsfeld and Cheney and other members of the administration. I think he was wrong about that. That was during a time that a lot of us were standing up very strongly against some of the actions of the president. And I think General Clark will have to explain to the Democratic voters in the primaries why he did that and why he's changed positions.

SNOW: You said that you strongly disagree. He merely said the president has a good foreign-policy team. You don't think he's got a good foreign-policy team?

EDWARDS: I think he said more than that, if I — and I've only heard this anecdotally, but what I was told is that he gave great praise to the president, gave great praise to Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and what they were doing. And at least from my perspective, I can't tell you how strongly I disagree with that.

{SNOW}: All right. There's been a little skepticism also of his involvement with something called the Axiom Corporation. One of your home-state newspapers, the Raleigh News and Observer has a story about it. This is an outfit that gathers tons of information about people's personal lives and than distributes it.

Do you have any concern with Wes Clark having earned his keep, at least working on the board of Axiom?

EDWARDS: Yes, I have some concern about it. I think general — a lot of us are concerned about general privacy issues in this environment after September the 11th. And I understand that General Clark, while campaigning this week, said very strongly that he believed we need to be careful about making sure people's privacy was protected and talked about this subject matter.

And the fact that he serves on the board and has worked with and for a company that's involved in this, and specifically I think had some involvement with Jet Blue and some problems with people's privacy being violated, I think those are just all questions, since he's new to the race, that he'll have to respond to. And there may be answers, but I think he has to give the American people those answers.
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98539,00.html