MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

Interview

MR. MATTHEWS: Democrats won control of Congress a year ago with promises to end the Iraq war. So why aren't Democrats trying to stop this war?

With us now, two Democratic House members, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Jim Moran of Virginia.

Congresswoman Schakowsky --

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: -- you're against the war. Why does it seem like the Democratic Party isn't doing the job of ending this war?

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Well, I think that we have done quite a bit, but I agree with the frustration that's being felt out there. You know, I don't know that the American people expect us to win every battle, but what they do expect is that we're going stand up and fight.

As someone who has started -- one of the founders of the Out of Iraq Caucus, as someone who has signed a letter to the president that I'm not voting for any more money unless it's connected to a withdrawal from Iraq, I want to see more action in the Congress too. And I'm trying to convince my colleagues and our leadership that putting up the fight is something that not only our constituents want but something that we need to do for our young troops that are over there.

MR. MATTHEWS: You know, Congresswoman, I know you're against the war, but I don't hear your answer. Do you believe the Democratic leadership is doing the job of bringing this debate to the American people? Where are the C-SPANs? Where are the special orders? Where are the Fulbright hearings? Where's the Pentagon papers? Where's the demand night after night for a vote on the war? It seems like you try to be against the war and then you fade back into the woodwork for a couple of months at a time.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Okay, if you want the answer, I think that we're not doing enough, that we're not. Though we've had 162 oversight hearings, we need to do more. We need to do something every day. We need to be fighting. But even today, when we tried to override the veto of the SCHIP bill, we connected that back to the war -- $10 billion a month in Iraq for the war and $7 billion for one year for 10 million children.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: We're trying to make those comparisons.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, let me tell you what the American public thinks. Eleven percent think you're doing a good job.

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MR. MATTHEWS: Well, Congressman, back in the '60s, as you recall, Fulbright from Arkansas used to hold hearings, and everybody understood at the end of the hearings what the war was all about, how we got into it, how we got stuck. Newt Gingrich, whatever you say about him as a Democrat, as a Republican, he used the special orders every night. He had hearings. He had people on the floor every night, even when there was nobody else in the chamber, speaking up, speaking up, speaking up. I don't sense that urgency on the part of the Democratic majority, do you?

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Well, in fact, many of us who have been against the war from the start have been going down to the floor on a regular basis. We just had successful hearings, I think, on Blackwater and the use of private contractors, and I think that we're going to see an end to the use of Blackwater, for example, in Iraq.

But I couldn't agree with you more. I think that we do need to step it up and I think that we need to do absolutely everything we can, despite the Republicans in the Senate and the president ready to veto. So I'm with the American people on this.

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MR. MATTHEWS: Congresswoman Schakowsky, let me ask you this.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Yes.

MR. MATTHEWS: Not a single Democrat in the House of Representatives lost his or her seat last year on the war issue.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: That's --

MR. MATTHEWS: That would seem to be a pretty good leading indicator that this issue is politically safe, and if you believe in the cause against the war, morally right. If you put together the morality of this issue and you put together the politics, that would suggest the need for zesty action, not caution.

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Actually, I'd go even further than that, Chris. I would say the main reason that Democrats won the majority in the House and in the Senate was that they wanted to see a new direction in Iraq. They wanted this war to be over. The American people are done with this war. They're looking at it in the rear-view mirror already, and they can't understand why the Congress isn't doing more to end it.

There are these realistic obstacles, but that does not mean that we shouldn't stand up every day and say this war must come to an end, do everything we can to end it. So I would say we won the election because of that.

MR. MATTHEWS: Some people think, Congressman Moran, that the Democratic caucus is secretly waiting for a nominee to come, whether it's Hillary Clinton or certainly Barack Obama or John Edwards or Bill Richardson, someone to come forward next January and lead the way on the issue of the war. Is the Congress waiting on the nominee?

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REP. SCHAKOWSKY: You know, and this president is perfectly capable of orchestrating a dog-and-pony show with Petraeus and Crocker; Petraeus who told me in Iraq we'd be there for nine to 10 years. So it's still this president's war and he still has the loudest megaphone on the block here. And sometimes you don't, I think, hear the press conferences that we have and the motions that we have. But we do need to step it up, dial it up and fight more against -- fight harder to end this war.

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MR. MATTHEWS: Well, just as -- you know, as Jim Webb, the senator from Virginia, said, people don't mind people taking any position as long as it's not the fetal position. And I hope both sides get their act together.

Thank you very much, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky of Illinois --

REP. SCHAKOWSKY: Thank you.

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