Q: I want to welcome the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee -- Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, who has endorsed Barack Obama. Welcome, Mr. Chairman.

Waxman: Thank you, pleased to be with you.

Q: So, first question of course, why have you endorsed Obama, and why did you do it now?

Waxman: I think the world of Hillary Clinton and the contributions she and her husband have made to this country, and I didn't want to get involved because I think she'd be a great president. But it's pretty clear to me that she's not going to be our nominee -- that there is a developed consensus around Barack Obama, who I think has given a new enthusiasm to many people in this country about a Democratic administration that will try to change the ways that we've lived for the last seven (so far) years under President Bush, and will do things about the problems that affect people in this country. So I wanted to come out for him and add my support, and I'm going to do all I can to help him get elected president.

Q: Well, you mentioned President Bush, and that brings us to a news event that erupted when President Bush was speaking in Israel. He appeared to take a political shot at Sen. Obama. He said that Americans who advocate meeting with Iran's leaders, which Obama has suggested, are like the appeasers who failed to check the onslaught of Hitler and the Nazis. What is your reaction to that?

Waxman: I thought that was shameful for him to make such a statement on the occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary and to try to politicize that event by making that kind of a statement. When he was finished, as I understood, his campaign people there said this was a shot at Barack Obama and then the White House people here in Washington realized how offensive it was and they tried to pull it back. But that's the way they often will smear. They will say things and then say, no, they didn't mean it. It is nothing but a smear. And it's so offensive when we've had seven failed years of foreign policy by the Bush Administration that has destabilized the Middle East, made Israel more insecure.

Every time I travel to the Middle East, and I'm going there again tonight, I talk to leaders among Palestinians in the Arab world who say with regret that it was Bush who pushed for an election that brought Hamas, the leading terrorist group in that area, to power. And I just think for him to make this kind of smear – all my life I've heard these kinds of smears -- the Democrats are Communists, the Democrats are weak, the Democrats are for treason. This is not a civil debate. This is beneath the presidency and even beneath George Bush.

Q: Well, Mr. Chairman, you are also a member of the Jewish community yourself -- a very good and close friend of Israel -- and you are familiar with the thinking of government officials and citizens in Israel. How do you think they have reacted to what the president said?

Waxman: They may not want to get involved in U.S. politics, but I can't see that anybody listening to that kind of a statement would appreciate that as anything other than a politicization for American politics, and using the specter of Nazi Germany for those of us in the United States who feel that we ought to be talking to people like the leaders of Iran.

Not that we're going to give in to them in anyway, but we've talked to the Soviet Union throughout the whole Cold War. We should be talking to people so that they know our views and we learn theirs so that we can see if we can find some diplomatic and peaceful ways to resolve problems not just the military ones that Bush has engaged in. We need to engage them in discussions, diplomacy at the same time we apply sanctions that should be growing more and more severe if they don't stop their nuclear weapons program.

We ought to never take off the table the possibility even of military action, because if you're trying to negotiate, you're talking to them, but you're also, in effect, telling them that they are going to continue to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. And we need the rest of the world to be with us to isolate Iran so that they get the message and we can resolve their attempt to get nuclear weapons through diplomacy rather than through any other means.

Q: It's been widely reported that some American Jews don't trust the depth of Obama's support for Israel. Why do you think that is?

Waxman: I think they don't know him. They've heard a lot of misinformation. I have a wonderful relative who is a great liberal, and she was talking about Rev. Wright as somebody that converted Barack Obama from being a Muslim to becoming a Christian. He's not a Muslim. He's not against Israel, and there is a lot of misinformation, some of which -- a lot of which, is coming out from the Republican Party. There is a Republican Jewish Coalition that puts out statements that would suggest that Obama's hostile to Israel. That has never been his position. He has a very close relationship with the Jewish community in Illinois, and I think when people get to know him better, they will resent the attacks on him as much as I do.

Q: Well, thank you very much. Congressman Henry Waxman of California, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Thanks so much for joining us.

Waxman: My pleasure.