FLASHBACK 1992: CNN Uses a Staged Ambush Question from a Clinton Operative against President Bush, George Stephanopoulos

Accuracy in Media published a report and transcript at the time.



A King Assist to Clinton



The ineptness of the Bush campaign doesn’t minimize or excuse the role played by the media in defeating Bush. Despite the flaws in the campaign, a week before the election, the polls that had shown Bush trailing badly began to change. The CNN/USA Today tracking poll revived Republican hopes when it showed Clinton leading Bush by only two points on October 29.



That same day Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel, obtained a new indictment of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, releasing the texts of 15 notes written by Weinberger. One dated January 7, 1986 was about a meeting of President Reagan and his top aides at which a plan to sell 4,000 TOW missiles to Iran in exchange for five hostages was discussed. Weinberger wrote that he and George Shultz opposed the plan and that Bush was one of four who favored it, but it is not clear from the note that Bush attended the meeting. Bush has long insisted that he didn’t know that this was an exchange of arms for hostages until December 1986, when the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee briefed him.



With this, the attack on Bush’s character that Clinton had launched the previous day escalated. Clinton declared this “diminishes the credibility of the presidency,” and Senator Gore called it the smoking gun that proved Bush had been lying. It was the first subject Larry King brought up when Bush appeared on his show that night, grilling him for two minutes. When the lines were opened to callers, the fourth call was from George Stephanopoulos, Clinton’s communications director. This dialogue followed:



KING: Let me, we have a call from Little Rock from, from George Stephanopoulos, who is, who is– BUSH: Oh no, oh no. Go ahead. KING: He is Governor Clinton’s campaign manager. This is an open phones session. He dialed in directly. It wasn’t a secret number. Go ahead, George. STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. President, you asked us to find out what the smoking gun was. What this memo clearly shows, this memo by Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense, is that on January 7, 1986, let me quote from the memo: “The president decided to go with an Israeli-Iranian offer to release our five hostages in return for the sale of 4,000 TOWs to Iran by Israel.” In other words, it was clearly an explicit deal of arms for hostages. But on January 8, 1988, you said that you sensed that we were sending arms, you sensed that we were trying to get hostages out, but it was clearly not arms for hostages and for the last five years you have consistently said that it was not arms for hostages, and this memo clearly shows that it was arms for hostages, five hostages in return for the sale of 4,000 TOW missiles and that you knew it then. According to Mr. Weinberger. BUSH: May I reply? Let me tell you that Mr. Stephanopoulos, a very able young man, was the floor director or something for Mr. Gephardt, who is the majority leader of the Democrats, of the House of Representatives under the Democrats–that’s his background. It is the Democrats who have been pushing –to the tune of some $40 million–these hearings. I would refer him to this testimony, which pretty much says what he has just said. However, to this very day, President Reagan didn’t feel that that arrangement was arms for Hostages, the president of the United States. I have testified to that, and George, if I might make a little political observation here, because I keep reading you are getting into our stories all the time, I think this is rather desperation, last minute politics when you feel something slipping away from you, and you’re too smart for that. KING: George, want to respond? STEPHANOPOULOS: All I would say in response was– BUSH: I didn’t come here to debate Stephanopoulos. I’m here to debate you, Larry. Come on. KING: Let him respond and then you respond. George?



After a second exchange along the same lines, King pursued the question, asking, “But if 4,000 TOWS had gone in return for five hostages, what else could it be’?” BUSH: Larry, please read the testimony. There was trying to work with moderates. They weren’t dealing with people that had the hostages. There’s a whole history that this poor guy is trying to resurrect four days before the election. It’s wonderful how his call gets in. this random call…. KING: We don’t have a private line. We really don’t. I don’t control the calls. BUSH: He’s a patient fella. [Goes on to commend Stephanopoulos for the good job he had done for Clinton. but suggests that he read all the testimony.]



Larry King had scored a coup–a televised ambush interview of a sitting president running for reelection by his opponent’s spokesman. King’s producer says that he “misspoke” in claiming that Stephanopoulos had not been given a secret number and that there was no private line. On King’s next program a caller charged that Bush had been “set up.” King said, “Mr. Stephanopoulos called. He had a complaint. We told him to call back.” He said nothing about his having “misspoken.”



The closure of the gap in the polls was reversed over the weekend. Bush officials put the blame on the adverse publicity resulting from the new Weinberger indictment. One spokesman said, “We hit a wall,” and the help King gave Clinton by arranging the ambush interview was partly responsible. It helped fuel the negative publicity that resulted from the action of special counsel Lawrence Walsh.