MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" -Transcript

Interview

MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" -Transcript

MR. MATTHEWS: Will this new immigration bill really stop illegal hiring?

U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter, a Republican from California, is a 2008 presidential candidate. He's also ranking member on the Armed Services Committee.

And U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak; he's a Democrat of Pennsylvania, also sits on Armed Services. He's also a retired admiral in the U.S. Navy.

Let me go to Congressman Hunter. You just left a meeting with the president on Iraq. Let's get to that first. Anything new in terms of the surge? Is it working? Will we know soon? Where do we stand?

REP. HUNTER: Well, this was -- the president was listening to a number of ranking Republicans. I gave him my position on Iraq, which he's already been given in the past, but that was simply this. Everything in Iraq depends on the reliable stand-up of the Iraqi army.

And there's 129 battalions in the Iraqi army. Every one of them needs to get a three- or four-month combat tour, an operational military tour, where those combatant commanders, those battalion commanders, exercise their chain of command. They have to exercise their logistics capability. And when they are proven reliable by undertaking a three- or four-month operational tour, they can start to rotate into the battlefield, displace American heavy combat forces. American heavy combat forces can come home.

So everything depends on developing a reliable Iraqi army. That means we have to get all of them into the operation. That was my point to the president. He's heard it before, but I wanted to make sure that I believe that this is the time to ensure that every one of them gets into the fight.

MR. MATTHEWS: Congressman Sestak, just on that point, are you confident that an army that has not been able to do the job will be able to do it in a reasonable period of time, that we can actually have them replace us over there?

REP. SESTAK: No, I respectfully disagree with the congressman. The most important issue is not the military. I mean, we've trained 325,000 of their military. Half of them do not show up each day -- half of them.

Second is, the most important issue is much like General Petraeus and others have said. It's about political reconciliation. We're merely having our military provide them military cover and political cover for their ministries to get personal fiefdoms of power.

The only strategy that will work is a date that says, "We won't be there. Stop this culture of dependency. Work with Iran and others who don't want a failed state." Ambassador Crocker, when I was over there recently with Senator Hagel, said Iran does not want a failed state. So, therefore, we need to work with them because they control some of the extremes, when we're not in there anymore bleeding profusely, like they want us to, to bring about an unfailed state. There is a strategy, but it depends upon leading with a political confidence, not our military.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, let me go back to Duncan Hunter.

Congressman, let me ask you this question about borders. You're very much -- I saw you in the debate the other night on Fox. You were very strong on the issue of building that fence across the southern California border with Mexico. You believe it worked.

Will this new bill the president presented today with his coalition of senators, including McCain and Kennedy, do the job of stopping illegal immigration?

REP. HUNTER: Well, I don't think it will, because the bill cuts my fence in half. And when we passed this bill, which I wrote in October, passed by the House -- the Senate passed it, 80-19 -- it provides for 854 miles of double fence across the smuggling corridors of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. You have to put that fence in place.

When we put that fence in place in the number one smuggling corridor in California, it worked great. It's knocked down smuggling in that sector by more than 90 percent. So the Senate bill, off the bat, more than cuts the Hunter fence in half. I don't like that. And so you're going to have the same porous border.

You're going to have a lot of fancy phrases and subsections and sections of new statute if this thing should pass and be signed by the president, which the world will totally ignore. And since we had the last amnesty, we have caught -- in 2005 we caught 155,000 people coming across from Mexico who weren't even citizens of Mexico. They came from every part of the world, including communist China.

So the world is watching our southern border as long as they realize that it's open. When we pass a bill that gives people the impression there are new benefits to be had in the United States, and that's the Senate bill, you will have a stampede for the U.S. border that will overwhelm our border forces.

MR. MATTHEWS: Congressman Sestak, are you going to vote for this bill the president's put together with people like Kennedy and McCain?

REP. SESTAK: I haven't seen all the particulars, but I believe I will support it.

Let me just speak about the wall. You know, a wall is something that we should not do. Again, I respectfully disagree --

REP. HUNTER: It's not a wall. It's two fences with a road in between.

REP. SESTAK: They will tunnel underneath it or they'll climb over it. Let's do what we do in the military. Let's get our unmanned air vehicles, Global Hawk, that can see thousands of square miles with a smart sensor and look down and then link the information, because they can tell the difference on radar between a coyote and a human being. It links it down to a command center, and then we efficiently send out a Humvee to intercept them.

Second, however, I think that what we need to do is begin to enforce some of our employer problems. Think about it. Since the end of the Clinton administration till 2004, we used to have, at the end of the Clinton administration, 182 employers were facing prosecution. But, no, now, in 2004 only four had we enforced. So, no, this effort by them to have more employer enforcement about illegal immigrants is good.

And second, we need to take a step forward in order to have the right process in what is truly a practical issue of 12 million --

REP. HUNTER: Let me respond to that.

REP. SESTAK: If I just might finish. With 12 million illegal immigrants here in this nation -- 12 million -- are we going to find 200,000 buses, when only recently we were able to go to four businesses to find illegal immigrants? We need to secure our borders by smart military technology, and second, have a very serious way to make sure people get to the end of the line and appropriately pay fines and back taxes and then move forward at the end of the line.

REP. HUNTER: Okay, Congressman Hunter, last word.

REP. HUNTER: Yeah, let me respond to that. First, my good friend makes a point that's made by lots of people who don't understand the border. You can't have simply surveillance systems, because the Coyotes will bring, as they have in the past, a thousand people to the border. They'll blow the whistle.

You don't have to have a surveillance system that blows the whistle. They'll blow the whistle. A thousand people come over at one time. And unless you have a reaction force that can take a thousand people coming across the border at one time in what they call the Bonsai raids, you will not be able to stop them.

You have to have an impediment. The impediment that's been proven, that was designed by Sandia Laboratory, is a double fence. That means that a smuggler's got to come over the first fence, cross a Border Patrol road, and then sit down with his welding gear and cut through the second fence. That gives you time to catch them. You have to have an impediment. And it works in San Diego. We've reduced smuggling by 90 percent of people and narcotics. Let's do what works.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, thank you very much, U.S. Congressmen Sestak and Hunter.

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