MSNBC - "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Syria
Interview
Well, Representative Charles Rangel of New York -- he`s a Democrat, of course -- has called Obama`s handling of the situation embarrassing. In a statement, he said, "Military engagement should be our last resort. If we must go to war, every American should compelled to stop and think twice about whether it is worth sending our brothers and sisters and sons and daughters to fight."
He`ll be facing off right now with Democrats like Jim Moran from Virginia, who sees intervention right now in Syria as a necessity. In a statement from Jim Moran, he says, "President Obama was absolutely right in setting a red line against the use of weapons of mass destruction by Bashar al Assad. The United States has the only true ability to prevent the use and proliferation of such weapons."
Well, Congressmen Charlie Rangel and Jim Moran both join us, both members of Congress with very different views. I want to go to Mr. Rangel. Mr. Rangel, if this goes down, if the president of the United States suffers what the British would call a no-confidence vote on a matter of war and peace, isn`t he basically finished as commander-in-chief? How does he walk away from a defeat if your side wins this debate?
REP. CHARLIE RANGEL (D), NEW YORK: If we have the international community saying this is the right thing, this guy is an international tyrant and a danger to the whole world, even though I don`t see a direct danger to our national security, it would it seem to me that for the first time I can remember, Putin from Russia may have the right solution, and that is to go and diplomatically try to find out what we could do to intervene without going to war.
MATTHEWS: But that`s not answering the political challenge to the president of the United States, who you have always supported. If Obama goes down on this, if he is defeated on a matter of urgent national security, as he sees it, is he still credible as president, as commander in chief?
RANGEL: Credibility, I hope it doesn`t fall, because the president said that he has drawn a red line. If you think or if anyone thinks that drawing a red line means that a president can commit the United States to war without the support of the Congress, that just happens to be wrong.
From a constitutional professor, I would say that would be more embarrassing than anything else. But drawing red lines, there is no place for that if you`re talking about bringing our country into a wartime situation.
MATTHEWS: OK, Mr. Rangel has offered a principled position here, Mr. Moran. What is yours? Because his position is basically the president was wrong to draw this line in the first place. He shouldn`t be asking Congress to back it up. What is your view?
REP. JIM MORAN (D), VIRGINIA: Well, Charlie knows I love him, and we usually agree.
But, boy, I think you`re wrong on this one, Charlie. This is about much more than Assad and Syria. This is about the kind of world we leave to our children and grandchildren. Can we really allow the use of chemical weapons to become the new norm of war fighting?
It`s not just the president that laid down the red line. The Congress passed the Syria Accountability Act half a dozen years ago and specifically cited the use of chemical weapons and told Assad not to use them. We are the only country that can stop this. And if we have the ability, we also have the responsibility to stop it.
RANGEL: Jim, I tell you how much I love you.First of all, let`s make it abundantly clear that no Congress has ever voted to go to war because of what we think about chemical weapons being used against innocent people.
MORAN: We`re not going to war, Charlie.
RANGEL: But let me say -- let -- listen, listen.
MORAN: Well, you spoke, and now I`m going to speak.
RANGEL: Jim, there is no such thing as a half-war or make-believe war. War is war. And I`m not going to discuss that.
RANGEL: What I am willing to discuss that you are right.
MORAN: But you`re wrong.
MATTHEWS: OK. Let Mr. Rangel speak for a second here.
MORAN: All right.
RANGEL: That`s a limited war.Having said that, I mean, a limited war is Iraq and Iran and then 6,500 people killed. Having said all of that, it is a serious international
problem. We shouldn`t let gangsters and monsters like this go free. But we also should talk about why we have a United Nations, a Security Council, why we have the Arab League, why we have NATO, why we have Great Britain. We are not the only -- if we`re the only people, Jim, that see this as an international problem, I think we ought to take another look and see whether or not war is the answer to it.
MATTHEWS: Is there any way, Mr. Moran, of limiting this to one strike? I have never heard the American people passionate about one strike against another country, an act of war, but only one. For example, you have people, respected Republicans like McCain and Lindsey Graham out there getting the president sort of tied in today with the idea, well, we will support you, they said on Sunday, but this means you got to help us with the rebels too.
In other words, it`s like Chinese handcuffs. The president says, I will do this. Next thing, he is committing himself to helping the rebels more than he is. Isn`t he being dragged into war by the hawks, by supporting them?
MORAN: Both Presidents Reagan and Clinton used strategic strikes. They knew that they had the ability and they used it in a timely and proportionate fashion.
Israel has done it several times, Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah, et cetera. And it`s not about going to war. It`s about responding. As I`m saying, this is not just about Syria and Assad. This is about saying we will not allow the use of weapons of mass destruction to become the new norm. And we`re the only ones that can enforce that. And we should enforce that.You know, if we have the largest military in the world, which we do, greater than the sum total of every other nation, the rest of the world looks to us --
RANGEL: Jim --
MATTHEWS: Twenty seconds for Mr. Rangel, 20 seconds.
RANGEL: One thing that you`re missing, Jim, that we`re not only the nation that have got men and women in the armed forces. True, our elite population does not enlist for -- to join as a volunteer army. But we`re not the only country that got young people. And I don`t see any reason that I can explain to my constituents that their boys and their husbands and their brothers and their sisters should be going off to fight this monster for a civil war and have that as a priority to homelessness, joblessness, and all the other serious problems we face. I can`t sell that.
MATTHEWS: This debate, Mr. Moran and Mr. Rangel, is exactly what is happening in the Democratic Party right now, 46 percent for going into action against Syria on this issue, just striking at their bases, and 46 percent against.
Your debate was just saw is exactly essentially what is going on, on the
progressive side of things.
MORAN: But, Chris, sometimes, you just have -- and Charlie knows this -- sometimes, you just have to do the right thing. And he has done that many a time.
There was 80 percent support for the Iraq war when I opposed it, because I felt just as strongly it was the wrong thing to do. And this is a residual effect of the Iraq war. This is a very much about the Iraq war.
RANGEL: No president --
MORAN: The British would have been with us if we hadn`t made that mistake.
MATTHEWS: We will have you back, you gentlemen, back on again.
RANGEL: No president since Franklin Roosevelt has abided by the Constitution. And just because the Congress caves in each and every time doesn`t mean that caving in again is the right thing to do, Jim.
MORAN: Oh, Charlie, this is --
RANGEL: The Congress has to approve.
MATTHEWS: OK. We have to go right now.
RANGEL: It`s only the Constitution. If you say, oh, it`s only the Constitution, I understand your position, but going to war, 6,500 people.
MATTHEWS: This is the debate America is having right now, especially on the progressive side.
Thank you, U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, U.S. Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia.
When we come back: Republicans have a golden opportunity to do what they like to do best, humiliate President Obama. Will they vote their beliefs on this issue of war and peace or their hatreds of Obama? You guess. I`m already thinking about it.
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
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