BLITZER: New warnings that the U.S. could be ripe for yet another political scandal on the scale, perhaps, even of Watergate, this one stemming from secret special interest money coming into campaigns.
Let's bring in our senior political analyst, David Gergen -- David, let me read to you from Al Hunt's column on Bloomberg.com. He writes this. He says: "The U.S. is due for a huge scandal involving big money, bribery and politicians -- not the small fry that dominates the ethics fights in Washington -- really big stuff. Think Watergate. This year, there is a massive infusion of special interest money into U.S. politics that is secret, not reported. Corporations and other interests will spend more than $250 million of undisclosed funds to affect the outcome of the November 2nd national elections.
Are you as worried about another Watergate-type scandal as he is?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: No. Al Hunt is one of the preeminent journalists of our time, someone both you and I greatly respect, Wolf. But on this particular question of Watergate, I -- I think it's, you see, unless he has evidence -- and "The New York Times" also ran a story yesterday suggesting this would be another Watergate. They had pictures of Nixon all over the place -- and Spiro Agnew.
Unless there's evidence, it's a red herring. They're injecting something and it's a scare tactic to just get people scared -- oh my god, the Republicans are going to bring us another Watergate.
And there is no evidence of that at all.
I do agree with Al Hunt. I think he's absolutely right to champion the disclosure of all contributions. That was something that some Republicans did support early on, when just a few months ago. And I think the disclosure is important. I think Al is right on that.
But why -- you know, the only reason is to reach for Watergate, unless there's evidence, it's like the whole effort like over the last two weeks to say that the Republicans are bringing all this foreign money.
There's no evidence of that and then the Chamber of Commerce and others will come forward and show us all your donors if you want to convince us. And there's not a shred of evidence.
It seems to me that those two arguments are -- they're going to be on the bounds of what I seek happening.
BLITZER: And they said that recent Supreme Court decision made it clear that in some of these organizations, you don't have to disclose where these millions and millions of dollars are coming from.
GERGEN: Well, that's right. The court in this decision that was so controversial said, you know, it basically advocated disclosure. I think it was right. It's been -- as Al Hunt pointed out in his "Bloomberg" piece the Federal Elections Commission has really been dragging its feet, it was a very ineffectual dysfunctional group. They've been dragging their feet.
There is a lot of money coming into this campaign at the last minute. But I do think there a couple of other narratives which are also wrongheaded. Increasingly the narrative is the Republicans are bringing in all this foreign money and that they're basically spending tons and tons of corporate money and they're almost like stealing the elections through their money.
The fact is, I think, the facts at least born out by a big news piece in the "Wall Street Journal" today was that the two sides are relatively balanced now in terms of how much money through all their different channels they're bringing in and throwing into this.
And that the Democratic candidates for the House actually have a little more cash on hand than the Republicans. The Republicans have brought in a ton of money. Is it helping them? Yes. But I don't think it's stealing the election.
I think first public opinion moved into the Republican direction and then money came. It wasn't the other way around. The opinion was already moving.
BLITZER: Do you have a problem with the American citizens, employees of foreign companies that may or may not operate in the United States giving money to politicians?
GERGEN: Well, the "Hill" newspaper came out today saying basically they -- and reporting that now we learned that there are employees of foreign subsidiaries who are giving money to the Democratic Party. And that has been -- Republicans are arguing that's foreign money, it's inappropriate, it's hypocrisy to talk about our foreign money when you got this foreign money.
I think if you're working for a foreign company, you're an American citizen working for a plant here in America or say GlaxoKline (sic), a pharmaceutical company, you're working for their subsidiary here, I don't think that's foreign money. I think that's a false charge against the Democrats.
We're getting a lot of mud throwing around here, aren't we?
BLITZER: Yes. Well, there's a lot of money and you know what they used to say during Watergate --
GERGEN: There's a lot of mud, a lot of money.
BLITZER: All of the money. So that's what we're trying to do a little.
All right, David, thanks very much.
Transcript from The Situation Room Aired September 18, 2010