MSNBC Interview with Rep. Peter King (R-NY) Subject: Terror Funding Cuts Interviewed by Chris Jansing

Interview

MSNBC INTERVIEW WITH REP. PETER KING (R-NY)
SUBJECT: TERROR FUNDING CUTS INTERVIEWED BY CHRIS JANSING

MS. JANSING: (In progress) -- over a Bush administration plan to slash counterterrorism funding by half for police, firefighters and rescue departments. New York officials are especially upset; that proposal calls for a huge cut in money for port and rail security and reduces homeland security funds over all from nearly $3.5 billion to less than 1.5 billion (dollars).

Representative Peter King of New York is on the Homeland Security Committee.

Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.

REP. KING: Chris, good to be with you.

MS. JANSING: Senator Schumer says this cut would make New York vulnerable to another terror attack, and I'm quoting him here. He says, "When you read these things, you scratch your head and wonder if the White House is on the same planet as us."

Is he right?

REP. KING: He's right certainly about the Office of Management and Budget. They're the ones who are proposing this. The president has not accepted it yet, and I certainly hope he won't because these people in the budget office they can't see the forest or the trees; these guys are accountants and bookkeepers and numbers crunchers, they're bean counters. And I would much rather rely on the police and the fire.

You know, just take New York City or Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago -- they are on the front lines in the war against terrorism, and President Bush says we can't be cutting off funding for the troops in Iraq, and I agree with that. We also can't be cutting off funding for the front-line troops in New York City and Los Angeles. He says we can't be second-guessing the commanders in the chief like General Petraeus; I agree with that. But he also -- we can't be second-guessing the commanders at home in the war against terrorism, like Commissioner Kelly in New York and Chief Bratton in Los Angeles. This is absolutely disgraceful. It --

MS. JANSING: Well, let me make to you one of the arguments that the Bush administration is making.

REP. KING: Yeah. Right.

MS. JANSING: They say, look, we've given $23 billion in anti- terror grants to states so far. They say that money, frankly, they don't think it's been well spent. Has a lot of this money gone to essentially pork barrel?

REP. KING: No. Certainly I can speak for New York, I can speak for Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Absolutely not. If they have problems with some of the smaller states that they're sending money out to, that's not the fault of a city like New York, which is in the front lines of this war. Every dollar that's been spent in New York can be accounted for. It was absolutely necessary, and more is required in the future.

You know, al Qaeda is not going away, and if they -- if these numbers crunchers and bean counters in the budget office would go out and get some briefings from the intelligence community and find out the active plots and threats that are out there and realize how threatened a city like New York is, no, we need more money. We have not gotten -- we've never gotten enough money, and we certainly need more now. And they need it for personnel, they need it for equipment, for the transit system, for the ports, and one dirty bomb in one port in New York, whether it's Los Angeles or New York or Mississippi, wherever, would end up costing the economy billions of dollars apart from the tragic loss of human life.

This is indefensible, it's disgraceful, and I just certainly hope the president puts reins on this budget office and tells them to knock it off.

MS. JANSING: Well, let me ask you about where we are in the war on terrorism right now, in the context of Osama bin Laden putting out yet another tape last week. It was his fifth this year. As you know, Congressman, he called on Europeans to stop helping the U.S., particularly as it relates to Afghanistan. How much of a threat do you think he is? And how much of a threat do you think our cities are under from al Qaeda right now?

REP. KING: Well, al Qaeda has reconstituted itself. We are doing a much better job as far as intelligence. There has been real progress made. But our cities -- certainly New York, and I see the intelligence reports -- we are clearly the number one target. And there's any number of plots at any given time against New York City, against Los Angeles, you can go through the whole list, but especially in New York. This is real. And there's so many ways they can come in, there's so many ways they can infiltrate, there's so many plots that have been stopped. We've stopped over 20 plots.

But remember, we have to be lucky and we have to be right all the time. Al Qaeda only has to be lucky once. And it's not luck that's going to save us in places like New York or Los Angeles. It's going to be solid, effective intelligence and police work and counterterrorism. New York has a thousand police officers fighting counterterrorism. That costs a lot of money. They have -- we have one of the largest subway systems in the world. We have so many ports. So this is -- we're not talking about just counting numbers here. We're talking about counting bodies. We're talking about life and death.

MS. JANSING: Congressman King. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today.

REP. KING: Thank you, Chris.

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