MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Richard Blumenthal

Interview

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HAYES:  ISIS has been defeated.  This morning the vice president declared with that phrase that ISIS had been defeated in Syria, language that`s similar to what the president said a month ago when he announced his decision to withdraw from Syria and proclaim the U.S. had, quote, won against ISIS.
 
But about two hours before the vice president made his remarks this morning, ISIS claimed  credit for the worst attack on Americans in Syria in the three-plus years that U.S. troops have been there.  Four Americans, including two U.S. service members, killed in an apparent suicide bombing in a
city near the Turkish border.
 
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, a member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, joins me to discuss this.  What do you on the committee know and what do you in congress know about what happened today?
 
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, (D) CONNECTICUT:  What we know for sure, Chris, is that these deaths are tragic and our hearts go out to the families, but we also know that they are tied to a chaotic and confused withdrawal of American troops without any plan or strategy.  They`ve talked about a conditions-based plan.  There are no conditions.  There is no plan.  And the result is that we have emboldened ISIS and we have endangered our own troops.
 
And my fear is as a member of the Armed Services Committee that we are drawing down those
troops in a way that will further create dangers.
 
HAYES:  But what about the argument that this is precisely the reason the troops should be out?  I mean, ISIS doesn`t need an excuse to try to blow things up or kill people.  They`ve been doing this
indiscriminately mostly to Iraqis and Syrians, we should note.  They will continue to do it.  And that the risk of American lives is precisely the reason that American lives should be withdrawn.
 
BLUMENTHAL:  And the question is not whether to bring our troops home.  Everybody wants our troops out of Syria.  The question is how it`s done.  Process matters.
 
HAYES:  OK.  Ii agree with that.  I stipulate that.  But I have also heard that about Afghanistan for most of my adult life.
 
BLUMENTHAL:  And we should be drawing down in Afghanistan in an orderly, planned way, with a timeline.
 
HAYES:  Do you understand -- back to Syria for a second.  Do you understand what the actual policy is?  Because it`s been massively confusing.  The president announced this out of nowhere, we`re gone.  We`re out.
 
Then Bolton and Pompeo seemed to unwind it.  Now Pence back saying basically that we`re gone.  Like, what -- do you know -- as the oversight committee in the senate, do you understand what the policy is?
 
BLUMENTHAL:  I will tell you surprisingly and shockingly not only do I lack an understanding of what this policy is and what the plan and timetable is, but I believe our own military lacks a clear and comprehensive view of what our strategy should be in the region.
 
And it has to be more than military, it has to be diplomatic as well.  It can`t be the United States
alone.  It has to be our allies.  And we have been abandoning our allies, most prominently, the Kurds, a
gift to Russia, because the Kurds are driven into the arms of Russia.
 
So I think our military is gravely unhappy and the best indication of it is the resignation of Jim Mattis.
 
HAYES:  One thing I think people don`t have a good awareness of is just how much this president has escalated the number of U.S. service members in Syria as part of the ISIS campaign.
 
In December 2016, it was 278 U.S. service members in Syria.  It`s now somewhere we think
around 2,000, although we do not have any clear transparent accounting of them.
 
Do you have a clear, transparent accounting of how many U.S. service members are in Syria?
 
BLUMENTHAL:  We have no clear and transparent accounting, but also, we don`t know what the timeline for reducing that accounting is.  And the idea that ISIS, or the caliphate has crumbled, that we have defeated ISIS smacks of a mission accomplished moment, and really is naive at best, possibly delusional, dangerously so.
 
HAYES:  I want to ask you, since I have you here about the other big vote or the big vote today
on the Deripaska sanctions -- close, but no cigar.  Democrats missed by two votes.  Bernie Sanders missed that vote.  He was in a meeting with staffers who were voicing concern about sexual harassment on his campaign, so that was you were down a Democratic vote, although probably weren`t going to get over anyway.
 
What -- is there an argument on the other side?  Like is this a close call or not?  I can`t tell.
 
BLUMENTHAL:  Well, you`re asking me as a lawyer and a former prosecutor to make the case for the other side.
 
HAYES:  Well, I guess I`m saying were you -- was this a tough call for you?
 
BLUMENTHAL:  None of the arguments on the other side are credible or persuasive.
 
HAYES:  The arguments are basically, look, he has done what he needed to do to take his fingerprints off of EM+ (ph), which is the sort of the holding company for his concerns.
 
BLUMENTHAL:  Or we need to reduce the price of aluminum around the world.
 
HAYES:  That`s another one.
 
BLUMENTHAL:  Here is the main point, it`s a gift to Russia.  Remember, the reason for these sanctions was to punish Russia.  The penalty on Oleg Deripaska and his companies like Russoil (ph) was because he is an oligarch who is joined at the hip with Vladimir Putin.  Both of them are thugs.
 
HAYES:  Right.
 
BLUMEHTHAL:  And he is one of Vladimir Putin`s chief economic henchmen.  So lifting these sanctions is a gift to Russia and it sends exactly the wrong signal.
 
HAYES:  All right.  Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, thank you for coming by.
 
BLUMENTHAL:  Thank you.

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