World Class Journalism

Transcript taken from Dean's blog:

PAULA ZAHN: Final question for you, sir. Your candidate, governor dean, has made several references to -- about president bush having alleged advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks from the saudis. Should someone who wants to be president be trading on rumors?

JOE TRIPPI: That's not what the governor said at all. In fact, you're trading on rumors when you keep saying that.

PAULA ZAHN: I haven't said it yet. I'm just repeating --

JOE TRIPPI: Yeah, you're repeating the rumor. Yeah, what happened was the governor said that when the president and the administration mislead people and the war, the American people start asking questions, there's these rumors out there, and we need to talk about them to shut them down because he didn't believe it. And he said that on the air in the interview.

PAULA ZAHN: But there was another interview on npr that has gotten a lot of attention. He basically said, you know, whether this can be proven or not, he suggested that the president had had advance knowledge of what might have fallen on 9/11.

JOE TRIPPI: No. The governor said he didn't believe that, and it was part of the problem. We have this right now with black box voting. You'll find across the country that there are people all over this nation who believe these paperless computer voting machines are a way that the bush administration will steal the election. Okay, what's not important here is whether that's a rumor or not. What's important here is that we shut that down, that we prove to people that there's no way that anybody -- that these paperless machines are going to rob people of their vote. Repeating that is not repeating that you believe it. I don't necessarily believe that those machines do that or not. But if we're going to have a democracy, we have to say so and air it out.

PAULA ZAHN: Let me just repeat exactly what came off the transcript of the npr radio show, and this is governor dean's remark, "the most interesting theory that i have heard so far, he responded, "is that he was warned ahead of time by the saudis."

JOE TRIPPI: And then can you keep reading, please?

PAULA ZAHN: Well, could go on for the next five minutes from the interview. And you're saying he didn't say that, I got it right here.

JOE TRIPPI: No, no, no, I said if you keep reading, he'll say he didn't believe that.

PAULA ZAHN: There is a point at which, but you were denying what he suggested.

JOE TRIPPI: You're forgetting that part, paula.

PAULA ZAHN: I'm not forgetting it. I just wanted to clarify that he had, in fact, repeated something and he did say later on...

JOE TRIPPI: Keep reading the interview, and we'll get to the part where he says he did not believe it.

PAULA ZAHN: No, I am not denying that, but i wanted to challenge your point...

JOE TRIPPI: That's not how you started the interview.

PAULA ZAHN: I think our audience has a pretty good sense now of what was said and what wasn't said. Joe trippi, thank you for your time.


Classic.