MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much for joining us tonight, Michelle Hofland, to give your eyewitness account of what you saw down there.

We're joined now by two members of the United States Senate, Republican George Allen of Virginia and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Senator Allen is right with me. Senator Durbin is up on the Hill.

Thank you, gentlemen.

I want to ask you-we are going to talk about the whole question of spending here and how we're going to keep control of it, you senators are going to keep control of it.

But let me ask you about the charges right off the bat. It's the big story tonight, Michael Brown. He said that it was media hysteria that focused all the attention on what happened down there at the Convention Center in New Orleans. Do you believe there was an accurate picture presented on regular television by the regular news reporting, not commentary, of what happened down there, or was there some distortion in that?

SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), VIRGINIA: I watched it, like all Americans, on especially the cable news and had live people discussing and in fact desperate.

Michelle's stories are similar to other ones heard. I was governor of Virginia. And we never had a disaster like Katrina. But what one needs to do, especially with hurricanes, because you know they're coming-it's not unexpected-is, you have to position your assets ahead of time. And, as soon as the disaster hits and leaves, you go and mitigate the damage, help people.

And then, as governor, I found it very helpful right now away to get your boots in the mud, to let people know you know what is going on. It lifts their spirits. The prime photograph of the ineptitude-an ineptitude of mistakes were made by the federal government, the state government and the local. But the picture I always remember, as far as evacuation, is all those school buses, hundreds of school buses, stuck in water.

(CROSSTALK)

G. ALLEN: And they said they were not able to evacuate people.

MATTHEWS: And that's the mayor's fault, primarily, Mayor Nagin?

G. ALLEN: I don't care whose fault it is.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

G. ALLEN: That's showing that you had these assets. You could get people out. It was capable.

But then having people at the Convention Center without food and water, not even allowing them to go over the bridge to Gretna, is ineptitude as well. So, there's enough blame to go around.

But the point of the matter is, is, what they-they needed was a plan of attack and action and decisions being made right away to help people out who were in dire need.

MATTHEWS: I want Senator Durbin to respond to this. Here is what Michael Brown, the defrocked head of FEMA, had to say, what he said was his biggest mistake in handling, or mishandling, Katrina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, that's a pretty strong charge. What do you make of that, Senator Durbin? This is a mistake, a failure by the people in Louisiana, not the federal government?

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D), ILLINOIS: Well, let me say just a couple of things. First, keep in mind, the reports are that Michael Brown is still on the payroll of FEMA. He's on a contractual relationship. This man ought to get on his Arabian horse and get out of town.

Second, let me tell you this. The Mississippi mud-wrestling bout we just saw over in the House is proof-positive that we need an independent, nonpartisan commission to get to the bottom of this. We are going to have people like Michael Brown blaming everybody else in sight except for himself.

And the bottom line, as I recall, is that Governor Blanco asked for special federal assistance on Saturday and on Sunday in writing and didn't receive it.

BROWN: OK. Here is what Michael Brown said today when he was asked about a TV interview during which he said he had not heard, had not heard, about the desperation at the New Orleans Convention Center.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: I was just tired and misspoke. I learned about the Convention Center on Wednesday at approximately noon via e-mail from our folks on the ground, who told us that the hotels had begun to kick people out of the hotels.

I misspoke on Thursday, when I said that, you know, we were just learning about it. What I meant was, we were just learning about it 24 hours earlier-or, actually, 36 hours earlier.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: What do you make of that, Senator?

DURBIN: Well, you know, from my point of view..

MATTHEWS: Well, anyway, Senator Durbin, everybody in the country knows, for 48 hours, that those people were desperate down there. They were-they're dehydrating. There are babies dying. There's lots of faces down there, black faces, I must say, because that's part of this story. And there was no reaction.

In fact, the FEMA director said after two days of that television exposure to everybody, I didn't know what was going on down there. Apparently, the president had to get a DVD put together for him by Dan Bartlett, the president's top-one of his top aides, his communications guy, to bring him up to date on what was happening down there.

Is this something that is going to just be talked about for years or is this going to get over-are we going to get over this argument about whether the president was asleep at the switch and whether the FEMA guy wasn't watching television?

DURBIN: You know, what is most the important part of this, Chris, as far as I'm concerned, is not just what mistakes were made, but the fact that they're not repeated.

That's why we need this nonpartisan independent commission to point to how we should handle these disasters. Underfunding FEMA, putting political cronies in with no resume to back up what they're supposed to be doing, whatever the agency must be, is not making America safer.

MATTHEWS: Senator, Senator Allen, most Americans overwhelmingly want to see a nonpartisan, bipartisan, whatever, group study this thing and find out what went wrong. Do you agree with that?

G. ALLEN: Yes. I think it ought to be nonpartisan. It ought to be nonpartisan. We're trying to help out fellow Americans in Louisiana.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Both sides with the subpoena power?

G. ALLEN: That's fine. That's fine.

MATTHEWS: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: The president's people oppose that.

(CROSSTALK)

G. ALLEN: Well, if you look at the committees that we're trying to-we also want to get it bicameral, so you can have the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats. We can argue process all we want.

What we ought to determine is what went wrong, why it went wrong, why decisions were not made when they should have been. Granted, this was the largest natural disaster that has hit this country. But there are certain principles that one applies. And, as I said in the beginning, you position your assets. You know this is coming.

The National Guard is very, very important. I always found them very important as governor. Then, when it hits, you get in there right away. You don't dawdle. You don't wait. If you actually get your boots in the mud, you will see what is going on. There will decisions that need to be made quickly. Lives are saved. Damages are mitigated. And, in this case, too many decisions were not made.

MATTHEWS: OK.

G. ALLEN: And you can blame it on all sorts of process, but the key thing is personnel with the determination to get things done and act and don't worry about bureaucracy

MATTHEWS: What do you think, Senator Durbin, about one of your colleagues from Florida, Senator Martinez, hosting 200 lobbyists the other day, people who want some of those billions of dollars in federal money for contracting relief services? Do you think that's healthy for the United States Senate, for one of the senators to have a five-hour fest on Capitol Hill to welcome all the lobbyists, 200 lobbyists, to come up there and seek inside influence or whatever-I don't know why they're coming to the Hill to try to find ways to get money for their clients out of this deal, out of this disaster?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Is that healthy?

DURBIN: Well, Senator Martinez is my friend.

And I don't want to rush to judgment until I hear his explanation. But I will tell you, it is clear. All of these no-bid contracts that we're giving to these companies will result in wasted taxpayers' dollars and not help the victims that need it. And, unfortunately, some of the same names that received these no-bid contracts in Iraq are receiving them again when it comes to Hurricane Katrina.

MATTHEWS: OK.

DURBIN: We don't need to make this a feeding fest for those companies, at the expense of victims. It's not fair to taxpayers.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Senator.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You have got a plan here-and we only got a couple minutes, a minute-and-a-half.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Tell us why you think a line-item veto, a constitutional change in our government, to allow the president to strike out certain items in a spending bill, will help solve the problem of this cost for this relief effort.

G. ALLEN: Well, for this and any other spending.

Everyone is concerned about the spending out of control on a lot of projects that don't seem to be essential, whether it's a bridge to help out 100 people who take a ferry to an island or rain forests being created in Iowa.

I was governor of Virginia. We used the line-item veto to curtail wasteful spending; 43 governors have that power. I think the president of the United States ought to have that power as well. Ronald Reagan, who is the one who motivated me to get into politics...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

G. ALLEN: ... always would talk about wishing he had the line-item veto power. I think it's time for it to be revived. The people of the country would approve this constitutional amendment. It will have the president also responsible for wasteful spending.

MATTHEWS: Well, why do you think the speaker of the House has shut up one of his members, one of his Republicans who has been trying to talk about cutting other expenditures to make up-to pay for this cost in the relief effort?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Why is he telling him to shut up?

G. ALLEN: I don't think he ought to, because I think we ought to look at places where we can offset some of this added spending.

MATTHEWS: Name a program you would cut.

G. ALLEN: Well, there's a variety of things we have put on the table, everything from delaying the prescription drug benefit. But that has been knocked off the table. There are different things, global AIDS initiative, where the funding is more than even the president responded.

MATTHEWS: Right.

G. ALLEN: I would get rid of the whole surgeon's general office.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: They're not a surgeon. They're not a general. They're just a nanny.

MATTHEWS: Would you put off the prescription drug bill, Senator Durbin?

DURBIN: Chris, isn't this perfect, that, when it comes to rebuilding Iraq, we didn't hear a word from Republican leaders about offsets and cutting spending in other areas, but when it comes to rebuilding America, they suggest we cut spending for health care for the poor? Doesn't that tell you the story of what went wrong in Hurricane Katrina?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But the prescription bill-the prescription bill was a Bush bill, though, Senator. Why wouldn't you consider that appropriate, if you're a Democrat, to cut a Republican measure to try to save money for the relief effort?

DURBIN: I didn't vote for that.

And I will tell you this. We can change that to make it better. I don't want to cut off prescription drugs for the poorest elderly in America to pay for this, when there was no setoff when it came to rebuilding Iraq. What is the priority of the Republican Party, that they think helping Americans is something we can't afford to do, but spending billions in Iraq, there's no limit to how much we can spend?

MATTHEWS: Did any of the Democratic leadership called for cuts elsewhere to pay for Iraq when they all supported the war?

DURBIN: I can tell you this. When it comes to providing the funds for our troops, we have been for every single dollar...

MATTHEWS: No, but I mean offsets.

DURBIN: No, no, let me finish, if I might.

MATTHEWS: Where are the offsets?

DURBIN: Let me finish it.

Senator Dorgan led the leadership-or led the effort in the Senate to say that the oil revenues for Iraq, which were promised for this purpose, should be used for this purpose. And that was rejected by the White House. We think the Iraqis ought to be paying for their own reconstruction with their own oil revenues.

MATTHEWS: Well, that was one of the promises, Senator, wasn't it?

Anyway, thank you very...

G. ALLEN: Well, know, but that's not an example of reductions.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: It's not a case of-I haven't heard any Democrats even-

I don't even hear from the Democratic Party where they stand on the war. Anyway, at least your party is for the war. At least you know where you stand.

Thank you.

G. ALLEN: We stand strong for freedom and we stand on the side of Iraqis trying to have a free and just society.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You're with the war. And I don't yet hear a message from the Democrats.

I don't want to make-Senator Durbin, do you want to correct me on that? Where does your party stand on the war in Iraq? Are you for it or against it?

DURBIN: Well, at this point, we're behind our men and women in uniform. Those of us who might have disagreed with going into this war are not going to shortchange the men and women in uniform the equipment that they need.

MATTHEWS: Right.

DURBIN: The armor for their Humvees. We are going to stand behind them.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Was it a mistake to go to war in Iraq or not?

DURBIN: Well, I voted against it, because...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You think it was a mistake?

DURBIN: We didn't have the allies behind us.

MATTHEWS: Right.

DURBIN: We didn't have a plan for what to do after Saddam Hussein fell. And we have lost over 1,900 of the bravest young men and women in this country already. And there's no plan from this administration to bring our troops home, no plan to put the responsibility for leadership on the Iraqis themselves.

G. ALLEN: That's absolutely incorrect.

What we're trying to do is help out the Iraqis as they're trying to construct a constitution. We're on the side of those who are trying to build a country.

MATTHEWS: OK.

G. ALLEN: We're not on the side of the terrorists who are blowing up police stations, shopping centers and...

DURBIN: Neither am I.

G. ALLEN: ... even terrorizing...

(CROSSTALK)

DURBIN: Neither am I.

G. ALLEN: So, what side are you going to be on?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: We are going to continue this debate on this program.

DURBIN: No, that is...

MATTHEWS: Thank you, Senator Durbin, very much.

Thank you, Senator Allen.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9515429/