MSNBC "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" - Transcript

Interview

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So is freedom of religion, madam.

Let"s bring in man who used a Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson for his unofficial swearing in ceremony, Congressman Keith Ellison. Thank you for your tonight.

REP. KEITH ELLISON (D), MINNESOTA: How are you, Keith? Good to be here.

OLBERMANN: Your response as a Muslim-American, as a member of Congress, or both, to this American Family Association idea, if you would, please?

ELLISON: My response as an American is that the Constitution guarantees all people to seek the divine as they see fit. Freedom of religion is a deeply rooted, deeply ensured American value, and these people are attacking this. I think it"s important for Americans to put these folks in the box of the radical extreme, which they are.

The mainstream idea is that all Americans have a First Amendment which protects their right to worship as they see fit. And that means go to the institutions that they see fit to go to, including mosques.

OLBERMANN: Newt Gingrich said that he won"t be lectured on religious liberty while there are no synagogues or churches in Saudi Arabia. Isn"t Saudi Arabia an unusual place to bring up--to compare--or should we be changing our public relationship to the individual right to worship as you choose to make it more along the lines of Saudi Arabia?

ELLISON: You know, Keith, when I read that Mr. Gingrich wrote that, I found it shocking, because although I disagree with almost everything that he says, I at least thought he was intellectually consistent and knew a little bit about what he was talking about. I now have been disabused of that erroneous belief.

Gingrich, if he wants to--Saudi Arabia to be the standard by which we judge America and determine our own liberties and freedoms, then that"s something I can"t go along with and I think a lot of Americans would agree with me. The fact is that, you know, this is the greatest country in the world because here you can seek your divine as you choose fit. You can worship as you choose.

And so I don"t know why they would ever want to go back to that. But, Keith, there"s another point I hope we can bring out here tonight. And that is that those transnational terrorists who did attack the United States on 9/11, their narrative is that the west is at war with Islam. My question to my fellow Americans is why would we want to reinforce that false narrative? Don"t we want to undermine it? All we have to do to undermine that narrative is to stand on our own traditions of saying that all Americans can worship as we see fit; we tolerate religious liberty; and that that automatically destroys this myth that the bin Ladens of the world are trying to perpetuate.

My question is why won"t Mr. Gingrich and Geller and all the rest of them stand with those of us who believe this Constitution is has worked pretty well over the last several hundred years?

OLBERMANN: That"s the great irony of that, congressman, that we don"t even have to do anything special to defeat that. We just have to stand up for, as you pointed out, what we"ve always believed in.

ELLISON: That"s right.

OLBERMANN: A question to you about your colleague, Mr. Pence. He is listed as scheduled to speak along with this Mr. Fisher of the Family Association at this event next month. Any thoughts for him or any other Republicans who are scheduled to be there?

ELLISON: You know, my father is a Republican, and I obviously love my dad. But he says, look, I didn"t leave the Republican party. They left me. The Republican party used to say they wanted to embrace and have a big tent. Now they are drifting toward the radical extreme. And I asked them to come back from the edge. I mean, the fact is we can argue over tax policy and expenditures and that"s fine. But once they start embracing clearly bigoted organizations, then that is a horse of a different color. And we--and I just hope that Mike rethinks what he"s doing by lending credibility to an organization like that.

OLBERMANN: Yeah. We need to draw a line against this, and we need to do it here. Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, forgive me for running out of time tonight. Great thanks for yours.

ELLISON: You bet. Thank you.

OLBERMANN: Death comes to town with "The Kids in the Hall." Dave Foley and Bruce McCulloch come to our studio.

Bill-O versus Jennifer Aniston on the necessity of fathers. The sad truth from O"Reilly"s past that explains this over the top reaction.

And when Rachel joins you at the top of the hour, the fight to repeal Don"t Ask, Don"t Tell as told by those who have to abide by it every hour of every day of their live, some of whom are going public for the first time tonight.

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