American Morning

VICTOR KAMBER, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Do I say “Kombanwa,” is that what Bill said?

O’BRIEN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) is the only word I’ve learned so far.

KAMBER: OK.

O’BRIEN: Also this morning, Cliff May is the former RNC communications director. He’s now with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Nice to see you, Cliff. Good morning to you.

CLIFF MAY, FMR. RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) to you.

O’BRIEN: Very good. All right, Vic, let’s begin with you. Bernard Kerrick — of course hindsight is 20-20, but who do you think dropped the ball here? Was it the White House and its vetting process, or do you think Bernard Kerrick just didn’t say all that he should have said early enough?

KAMBER: Well, I clearly think the biggest blame truly goes to Kerrick. I — you know, at one level I give Bush tremendous praise for moving quickly with the cabinet, making a number of changes at one time, not dragging this process out, but obviously in doing so, they moved too quickly with Kerrick. But they also had to rely on Kerrick.

The things such as “nannygate,” as we’re calling it, or the gifts that he may have received or whatever else — the issues are are not things that they would have been able to vet from a conversation unless the person giving the information was truthful from the beginning. And I think Kerrick left this administration high and dry and its — it amazes me that people who run for office or go for appointed office think they can hide in this day and age those kinds of skeletons.

O’BRIEN: Cliff, a quick question for you. What do you think the impact is on the White House and on Rudy Giuliani? Many people saying of course that boy, this is going to be good news for him.

MAY: I don’t think it has much impact one way or another. I don’t think its good news for Rudy Giuliani at all. He recommended Kerrick. But by the way, Kerrick is a good man. I mean, he’s a cop’s cop. He was there on 9/11; he volunteered for service in Iraq. Yes, he’s got a nanny problem. We’ve had these nanny problems going back a long way. Partly it’s the whole immigration problem that we refuse to fix and it wasn’t fixed in this last intel bill as we’ve discussed.

Look, you want a nanny and somebody says you know what, I’ve got a great one and her sister is available — what do you say?

KAMBER: You say you pay taxes. You say…

MAY: I know, but do you say if she has an accent I want to see that she’s really a citizen?

KAMBER: Yes. Yes.

MAY: OK, do you say I want to say her driver’s license because anybody can get a driver’s license. I — look, I think there is an immigration problem that needs to be fixed. It wasn’t fixed in the intel bill. Let’s hope it gets fixed next year.

O’BRIEN: And then of course there’s the issue of taxes and there’s more allegations that have followed, as well, so much more than just a nanny issue, isn’t it, Cliff?

KAMBER: Correct.

MAY: It’s more than that, but it points to that as one. Look, I agree. It — Bernard Kerrick — if he’s got an immigration problem, if he’s got a tax problem, he can’t be the head of Homeland Security which handles after all immigration. But I also think we should know we have a problem. The law about hiring illegal immigrants is probably one of the top laws broken in this country, especially in places like Southern California.

KAMBER: By employers, primarily by the employer, not the immigrants.

MAY: I agree so let’s fix it.

O’BRIEN: Cliff May you know we’re going to cut it a little short today because as we’ve been talking about all morning are waiting for the Golden Globe nominations to come out, so gentlemen I’m going to thank you and leave it at that. We’ve got much more to talk about later on. Thanks guys.

KAMBER: Thank you.

MAY: All right.