Sunday, January 17, 2010

Transcript: ABC’S 'This Week' (1-17-10)

Same guests as Meet the Press. Why?

in reference to:

"TAPPER: This morning, the crisis in Haiti. (on-screen): How frustrating is it for you that supplies are not getting to the people in need? (voice-over): Our guests, President Bush and President Clinton, leading a public appeal for one of the biggest relief efforts in American history. And from the front lines of the recovery, the commander in charge, Lieutenant General Ken Keen, and the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Dr. Rajiv Shah. Then... PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear... TAPPER: ... one year later, a first look at a new ABC News- Washington Post poll. And are Democrats about to lose Teddy’s seat? That and the rest of the week’s politics on our roundtable, with George Will, Donna Brazile, Tucker Carlson from the Daily Caller, and Katrina vanden Heuvel from The Nation. ANNOUNCER: From the heart of the nation’s capital, “This Week” with ABC’s senior White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, live from the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue. (END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: Good morning. By tomorrow, more than 12,000 U.S. military personnel will be helping in a massive relief effort underway in Haiti. Air is pouring in, but getting food, water and medicine to the Haitian people remains a huge challenge, and desperation has begun to lead to violence. Tens of thousands are confirmed dead, but even five days after the earthquake, rescue crews are still pulling people out of the rubble alive. At the White House yesterday, two former presidents met with President Obama and pledged to lead a nationwide effort to raise money to help Haiti recover and rebuild. I spoke with Presidents Bush and Clinton at the White House about their effort. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) TAPPER: I want to read you an e-mail I got from a Haitian friend of mine just a few minutes ago, he -- describing the situation on the ground there. He said, “The country is in total chaos. The government is totally non-existent. Law and order no longer exist.” How frustrating is it for you, President Clinton, that the response has been so overwhelming, and yet there is still -- supplies are not getting to the people in need? CLINTON: It’s frustrating, but I think we’re moving on it quickly. I think having the American military, the -- President Preval signed an agreement, worked out an agreement with Hillary yesterday morning to turn the airport over. Now, the -- the military, working with the U.N. forces, they still have structure. We lost a lot of U.N. people. Most of them were non-military. They’re setting up distribution centers to safely distribute food and water, and they’ll be able to have a widespread availability of medical care. And now -- so I think you’ll see it get a lot better in a hurry now. There also was an extraordinary amount of time devoted to trying to digging through those buildings to find people, living and dead. I think as -- as that effort begins to wrap up, you’ll see the distribution of food, medicine, water, and basic care get better. I think the security situation will get better. But people have to understand, not only was the city leveled and others, as well, west. The parliament building was wrecked. The presidential palace was wrecked. There’s -- as of yesterday, we’re still missing parliamentarians, still missing government ministers. I mean, the -- the country, the structure of the country was taken down. And -- and I think the United States has done a good job, and I think the international community has done a good job. The U.N. structure was taken down, biggest loss of life in a single day in human history. So President Bush and I were talking before. People get frustrated by this. But I think if you just -- within two or three days, I think, it will be in much better order."
- CQ Politics | CQ Transcript: ABC’S “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” (view on Google Sidewiki)

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