MSNBC - "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Syria

Interview

Joining me tonight Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida and Congressman Jim
McDermott of Washington. Gentlemen, great to have you with us tonight. Congressman Grayson, you first. Why is this not our fight?

REP. ALAN GRAYSON, (D) FLORIDA: It`s not our fight because no Americans have been killed. None of our allies have been killed. And you have to go through its bizarre, remote chain of causation to reach a point where it actually matter to anybody who the Department of Defense is supposed to be defending. In addition to that, there are no good options. The attack that`s being contemplated won`t do any good, and it`s expensive, and it`s dangerous.

SCHULTZ: Congressman McDermott, will it have an impact on house members now that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has passed 10 to seven. How robust is the debate going to be in the house? And where`s the momentum right now?There`s three questions at you but capsulize it for us where we are.

REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, (D) WASHINGTON: Well, we are at a place where I think everybody is looking to their own emotions to see what they think they ought to vote in which way they should go. The Senate vote was divided. It was in the party line.

I really think though, Ed, the president is quite sure of his position. I think he should go to the general assembly of the United Nations and make a speech and get the world behind him. He is going alone if he decides and we turn him down. He may go to Iraq or Syria anyway. And at that point he is going to be alone. I think he really needs to let the world know exactly what he knows and why he`s doing what he`s doing.And that diplomacy is really falling off the table in all this talk. It`s either military strikes or do nothing. Well, there is another option. It`s called diplomacy.

SCHULTZ: Yes. Congressman Grayson, you were in that House Foreign Relations Committee Hearing today. Did Secretary Kerry give straight answers or are we getting a sell job?

GRAYSON: Well, I think the answers were straight but at this point we`ve heard it all. You know, they haven`t called with any new information now in a substantial amount of time. What`s actually happening now is that the members who`ve already heard the arguments from the administration are hearing (inaudible) are overwhelmingly in favor of this. The poll and its public at this point would dramatically understate the people`s opposition to this. The polls indicate people are opposed but what you`re finding is that the opponents are inflamed. They`re angry about this. They`re angry about the thought that we`d waste a billion dollars or more on a military venture like this when we`ve got our own problems to deal with.
People don`t want us to be the policemen for the world any longer. They don`t want us to be the judge, the jury or the executioner. We`ve got 35,000 people already who comes through our website, DontAttackSyria.com but more every minute, people are angry about the thought.

SCHULTZ: Yes.

GRAYSON: That we`d be involved in war again.

SCHULTZ: I agree. I hear the anger on the radio. People cannot believe that we`re having this discussion with his president. Congressman McDermott, who pays for this? And how do we know it`s not open-ended?

MCDERMOTT: You know, I made a suggestion to my staff. We ought to get an amendment ready to put our tax on to pay for it as Alan suggests it`s going to cost about a billion dollars. Why don`t we just raise taxes and pay for it right now? We didn`t pay for Iraq. We didn`t pay for Afghanistan. We ought to start paying for things now. The sequesters hurting our economy and the budgets coming up and we got all kinds of problems and here we are spending more money on a war and makes no sense.

SCHULTZ: And gentlemen what do you say to those who -- and the president, and Secretary Kerry who says that our image will be damaged in the world and there`s and we have a moral obligation. Alan, what about that?

GRAYSON: It`s nonsensical. We look foolish to the world. We`re out on a limb here. We`re the only ones who are even contemplating any sort of Syria`s attack. If the world were behind us, that will be an entirely different story, the world is against us. Most of the countries wouldn`t even consider the possibility of doing something like this. There are 196 countries in the world. Why is it always our responsibility? This time the answer is it isn`t.

SCHULTZ: What about the response from Assad? Can we assume that he will strike us? Can we assume that he will hit back against the Israelis? I mean, this is all theory and then thinking that we`re going to blast 200 cruise missiles, and Congressman McDermott, and there`s not going to be any response that isn`t going to have big time ramification.

MCDERMOTT: The question I asked this morning when we talked with the chief of staff of the White House was, what will we expect on Friday after you do this on Monday? There is no question, we have no idea but the response will be from Syria, or from Russia, or Iran. We really are lighting a fire and not knowing what to --what`s going to happen when we light the fire.

I`m going to have a town meeting on Sunday night before I come back to Washington D.C., because I want to hear from my constituents whether they think it`s a good idea. So far, the mail and the phone calls are running a hundred to one against doing anything.

SCHULTZ: Congressman Grayson, what is this going to do the House? Do you anticipate some Republicans voting no on this? I mean, there`s a lot of them that are noncommittal right now, I mean they hate to support President Obama, because they hate the guy. Yet, they don`t want to look weak on national security in the next election? I mean, the President in some way has got them in a political pickle doesn`t he?

GRAYSON: Not at all, they think that going into this situation makes us look weak and exposes us to danger, as Jim just pointed out, there are so many ways this can go wrong. Syria and Hezbollah counter attack against Israel, just as Iraq did when Iraq was attack by United States. They can attack our U.S. Embassy, in Beirut which is a 2-minute flight from the Syrian border. It`s 15 miles away from the Syrian border. They can also attack our fleet in the Mediterranean, and beyond that, what good does it do? We could end up seeing that we end up arming the Muslim fundamentalist who represent the bulk of the fires at this point against the Assad Regime, you know, this is a situation where.

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

GRAYSON: It`s essentially none of our business. All the options are bad, we`re only going to make things worst.

SCHULTZ: Okay.

GRAYSON: And the Republicans see that. That`s why they`re going to vote three or four to one against this resolution.

SCHULTZ: All right. Quickly, Congressman McDermott, if we hit them, is this an active war?

MCDERMOTT: Yes.

SCHULTZ: Very good. Gentlemen.

MCDERMOTT: It should be declared by the congress if we turned it down, we should not go.

SCHULTZ: Okay. Congressman Alan Grayson and Jim McDermott. Congressmen, great to have you with us tonight. Thank you.

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