Bush and Arnold at odds?

Editor's note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions almost no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman.

Today, Kinsolving was caught up in the sudden evacuation of the White House due to an errant Cessna plane flying into restricted airspace. He shares his personal account here.

At noon when I arrived today at the White House press gate entrance, I went through the metal detector, checked my number in the computer and my equipment through another detector. I had gotten about halfway from that gate to the White House pressroom when to my surprise I saw and heard two uniformed members of the Secret Service White House detail coming toward me and shouting, "Go back, go back, out of the gate!"

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They looked serious enough not to question. So I joined about half a dozen other reporters in going back through that press gate when I ventured to ask one of those people what was up. He, too, was in no mood to talk and said, "Out of here and across the square."

So we did, and across Pennsylvania Avenue we saw more uniformed Secret Service, these carrying automatic rifles as if they certainly knew how to use them, shouting, "Move it! Faster!"

I moved as fast as I could, although I cannot run. While waiting about 10 minutes, I heard the roar of a fighter jet that flew so fast I missed it. Finally, we were allowed to return to the press gate and to the pressroom.

After presidential press secretary Scott McClellan briefed reporters on the breach of airspace by the Cessna aircraft and the resulting evacuations, he took questions from reporters.

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WND: The restricted airspace over Washington, has it ever changed in the last two or three years? And how big is it?

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McCLELLAN: I think it's changed since September 11th, and my –

WND: How big is it now?

McCLELLAN: You might want to double-check with authorities. I think there's a 25-mile area. But, obviously, there's Reagan National Airport; they have certain procedures that the planes departing from there follow. I think this was a general aviation aircraft, so it was not a – it was not a commercial –

WND: Well, 25 miles – it's been extremely enlarged, then, to 25 miles since 9-11?

McCLELLAN: Well, you can get those facts. I don't have those facts in front of me right this second.

Later in the briefing, WND asked McClellan about recent comments by California Gov. Arnold Scharzenegger.

WND: Scott, the president's fellow Republican, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on network TV this weekend that groups such as the Minutemen are rising up to guard our borders because the federal government is failing to secure the nation and more manpower is needed on our borders. And my first question, does the president believe Gov. Schwarzenegger is wrong or right?

McCLELLAN: The president believes that we need to continue taking steps to strengthen our border security. We have taken a number of steps since September 11, and we will continue to take additional steps to secure our border. And one thing that we can do that will help in that regard is to move forward on the president's immigration reforms.

WND: The president's Department of Homeland Security held a press conference in Douglas, Ariz., from which they barred editor and publisher Chris Simcox of the Tombstone Tumbleweed, who is one of the organizers of the Minutemen. And my question, is the president –

McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, what event was this?

WND: What?

McCLELLAN: You lost me in the first couple minutes of your question.

WND: Chris Simcox is an accredited Arizona editor, and he was barred from this press conference by the Department of Homeland Security.

McCLELLAN: Which press conference? I'm sorry, which press conference?

WND: And he was –

McCLELLAN: Les, which press conference?

WND: In Douglas, Ariz. Is the president appalled by this exclusion of an accredited newsman?

McCLELLAN: I don't know the facts about that. I think you ought to direct it to –

WND: But the U.S. senators – his U.S. senators were there. Kyl and –

McCLELLAN: I think you ought to talk to Homeland Security. I don't keep up with all the press –

WND: Will you check on this?

McCLELLAN: – conferences that they have across the nation. I would refer you to the Department of Homeland Security.