...BLITZER: Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska, has caused somewhat of a stir in an interview in Esquire magazine raising the impeachment word involving President Bush. I'll read to you from the Esquire interview.
"The president says, I don't care. He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him and before this is over you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends how this goes."
Where do you stand on the issue of impeachment and President Bush?
DODD: Well, I listened to Bill Cohen, your previous guest. I think he sort of expressed my views on this. I don't want to see us jump to this right now. It seems to me this is getting ahead of ourselves. There have been calls already. Various people have raised that as a suggestion here.
I'd rather see us try and resolve some of these outstanding issues we have here. We have got an awful lot of issues at home and abroad to try and work our way through. At this point here I wouldn't go that far. Others have raised those concerns but I'm not there at all yet, Wolf.
BLITZER: Well, but I -- what I'm hearing is you're not completely ruling it out.
DODD: Well, again, you never want to rule those things out, but it seems we're getting ahead of ourselves here. I thought Bill Cohen explained it pretty well here. We have got a lot of issues to grapple with here. The American public are wondering when we can get beyond the 51-49 divide in this country.
We need to sort of work through -- we have a lot of issues at home and abroad that require much more cooperation. I've been down this road. I spent -- that foolish effort to impeach Bill Clinton, that took so much time and effort here, I would be very cautious about jumping to that procedure here of impeachment having been through it once already.
BLITZER: Senator Chris Dodd is a Democratic presidential candidate. Senator, thanks for coming in.
DODD: Thank you, Wolf.....
...BLITZER: They used to be just whispers, quiet conversations about impeaching the president, but now as we just saw, they're getting a little bit louder. And you're going to be surprised who is doing some of the talking. CNN's Carol Costello joining us once again in New York.
What are you hearing, Carol?
COSTELLO: Well, Wolf, sounding just like a politician. He's not calling for it or suggesting it, but Chuck Hagel did drop the I-word. Keep in mind he is a Republican. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO (voice-over): More calls to impeach Bush, they're coming from lawmakers in more than half a dozen states. The mayor of Salt Lake City, a Democrat in solidly red Utah, was one of the first to jump on board.
And now, although he's not calling for it, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel did say in Esquire magazine: "Before this is over, you may see calls for his impeachment."
The issue? What Senator Hagel and some other critics see is President Bush's arrogance and disregard for Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM ABC NEWS "THIS WEEK,")
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL (R-NE), FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Any president who says I don't care or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed, if a president really believes that, then there are -- what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST: And you think that would be appropriate in this case?
HAGEL: This is not a monarchy.(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Though there are times when Mr. Bush's outlook seems downright royal.
GEORGE BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I'm the decider.
COSTELLO: But decisions people may disagree with doesn't make a president impeachable.
Reality check.
JONATHAN TURLEY, CONSTITUTIONAL LAW EXPERT: The framers did not want a president impeached because he simply is a bad president or he does bad things or stupid things. But once the president starts to violate federal law, then he gets into a realm of impeachable offenses.
COSTELLO: Turley says it is not an impeachable offense to, as the president's toughest critics charge, mislead the American people into war with Iraq. Or, as another presidential hopeful claims, to threaten another country, like Iran.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich, in a statement from his Web site on YouTube...
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D-OH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's illegal to threaten aggressive war against another nation. Iran has no ability to attack us. And they do not have the intention to attack the United States.
COSTELLO: Reality check.
TURLEY: If the president were to truly ignore Congress, if Congress put restrictions, for example, on money, then we would be getting in to dangerous territory.
COSTELLO: To sum it up, the only way President Bush can be impeached is if he violates the law.(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: And the Constitution makes it clear, you can dislike a president all you want, but the only way a president can be impeached is if he is found guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Thank you, Carol, for that....
