Bill Press: California Congressman George Miller, good friend of mine, good friend of the show, hi Congressman.

George Miller: How are you Bill?

Press: I’m doing good, let me ask you before we get into anything else; I’m sure you’ve heard the breaking news of the day. Our forces in Iraq have tracked down and killed the terrorist leader al-Zarqawi. Is this, to use the President’s phrase, a “turning point” in Iraq?

Miller: Well, I don’t think we can put any kind of burden on any of this in Iraq; this is very encouraging, I mean this fellow is a monster and has been with the incredible acts of cruelty and violence that he has designed and perpetrated but the fact of the matter is Iraq is a very tough slog and I think you've got to quit telling the American people that just one event is the “turning point” and now things are fine. We’ve got a very, very difficult, violent situation in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was part of that; he was less a part of it now than six months ago, a year ago because much of the insurgency has become home-grown and really embedded within the Iraqi society with the problems they have between Shiites and Sunnis and the power structure and all the rest of that.

Press: Now, back to domestic politics. I know that you as well as Leader Pelosi were very interested and involved in the primary out in California, North San Diego County, Duke Cunningham’s seat. After a very close race, Brian Bilbray is the winner there. What’s it all mean? How do you read this?

Miller: Well, I read it you took a district that was fire-engine red and Francine Busby ran an incredible race and came within four points of winning as Republicans came close to spending a little more than five million dollars to hold onto a seat that historically has been a very Republican seat. I think that tells you the country is in the midst of a change. They’ve made a decision they’re not going to stick with this administration. This hurdle was probably too high for Francine Busby to jump but the fact of the matter is in the aftermath on the floor of the House of Representatives everyone is wiping their brow going “whew, that was close.”

Press: And Bilbray says that he won because he ran against George Bush.

Miller: There’s no question about that. He was using the administration, one, to raise money then he would run against them the next day.

Press: Maybe that’s what they’re going to have to do from now until November.

Miller: Well you see more and more Republican candidates, when the President comes into the district, they won’t be seen with him but they’ll take his money, so I guess that’s the way they’re going to operate.

Press: So I saw yesterday in The Hill, the newspaper for Capitol Hill, that you planned to introduce some legislation, I think it’s today, regarding the Mariana Islands and the departure of Tom DeLay. Tell us about it.

Miller: Well, I introduced some legislation to really mark this week as a day of departure: off to jail for Jack Abramoff and out of the Congress for Tom DeLay because these two in their very, very corrupt partnership kept some good things from happening in the Congress that had bi-partisan support. One was to protect the human rights of thousands and thousands of Asian women who were brought to the Mariana Islands, which is a United States trust territory, to work in the garment factories; they ended up working in sweatshops. Many of them were forced into the sex trades and lap dances, into topless dancing, into prostitution and many of them were forced into forced abortions because they could not get pregnant on the job; that would require them to get sent home and they would get punished when they returned to China. That operation, the protectors of that, the enablers of that was this incredible, corrupt partnership between Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff. Jack Abramoff got millions of dollars from the garment industry. Tom DeLay prevented the legislation from coming to the floor that would have given these workers labor rights, would have given them the minimum wage, most importantly, would have changed the immigration laws so that now no immigration laws apply in the Mariana Islands. They were so successful in their partnership they even penetrated the Justice Department and got a justice department report after 9/11 submarined by their efforts that said ‘the lack of immigration laws in the Mariana Islands is a national security issue for this nation and a national crime issue for this nation because a lack of immigration laws is being used by both terrorists and crime syndicates.

Press: Oh my God.

Miller: This was the power. This was the power of Abramoff because he had a friend in the Republican leadership named Tom DeLay and Tom DeLay had a friend within the lobbying community and in the White House who had full run of the Interior Department, the Justice Department and the White House named Jack Abramoff.

Press: And DeLay said yesterday when he sees this testimony of Jack Abramoff and Tony Rudy I guess is the other guy’s name, DeLay said ‘You know I had no idea any of this was going on.'

Miller: Yeah, that’s like saying Leonard Bernstein had no idea what was happening in the orchestra when he conducted Rhapsody in Blue. I mean it just doesn’t work that way. He was conducting this from soup to nuts. He made sure, for ten years, this bill never got out of committee. It passed the Senate overwhelmingly on a bi-partisan basis. The lead author, who at that time was the Republican Senator from Alaska Frank Murkowski, who is now governor of Alaska. And you couldn’t even get a hearing in the House because Tom DeLay was protecting the income stream of Jack Abramoff, who was then contributing to DeLay, contributing to his charities, hiring his staff people. So the celebration was one, the introduction of the bill, which hopefully we will protect human rights but the real celebration was getting rid of this incredible, corrupt partnership that has plagued the Congress of the United States.

Press: And with that we’ve got to go. You go get them, Congressman George Miller.