MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Syria

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Joining me right now to talk about it is U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland. And David Corn is, of course, Washington bureau chief of "Mother Jones" and an MSNBC political analyst.

Mr. Cummings, do you think there`s any way in the world that the president of the United States, having been rebuffed by both houses of Congress, in effect, over whether to get authorization to attack Syria, would do it
alone?

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: I think it`s possible. I would not recommend it. I mean, if it had come to a vote, Chris, and if we had voted it down, I definitely would not have recommended it. But you know, in a way, Chris, I think it`s good for him to have that question mark out there, particularly when we`re trying to negotiate this Russian/Syria solution. And so I -- you know, again, I wouldn`t recommend it, but still, I`d love for President Assad to have it in his mind that the same president that took out Osama bin Laden is serious about what he says, and that might be some leverage to get this Russian/Syrian deal done.

MATTHEWS: Well, let`s go to David with that because that`s the big problem. The Russians say, We`ll do it, but don`t put the gun to the back of our head. Don`t say we got to do it or you`re going to blow up Syria. Don`t do that, or else we won`t do it. That`s the problem.

DAVID CORN, "MOTHER JONES," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, well --

MATTHEWS: They say, Pull back on this gunplay and let us have some time and stop talking about that stuff. That`s what they say.

CORN: Well, they have -- the president has pulled back. He`s called a time-out in Congress, and so he`s not moving forward with the vote. And that`s -- you know, they may want him to renounce the use of force, but I don`t think he has to do that. This is one of those diplomatic dances that can be finessed on the way to a deal. But it`s also important to know what is the goal here? The goal here from
the start was to make sure Bashar Assad didn`t use chemical weapons again. Now, people thought that was -- some people thought it was not going far enough, it wasn`t regime change. Some people thought we didn`t have any business there. But if there is an ongoing negotiation -- and it may not be perfect. It may not lead to a perfect solution. But if Russia`s on the hook for -- with Assad being restrained, it makes it a lot less likely that Assad will use chemical weapons again.

CUMMINGS: Absolutely.

CORN: And so, in some ways, Obama gets his goal --

MATTHEWS: Well, I want you to --

CORN: -- achieved.

MATTHEWS: Congressman, I heard you say that. And I think there is progress being made here because we know now that they`ve got the chemical weapons. We knew that, but now they`re admitting, their people, that they have --

CUMMINGS: Finally. Finally, they admit it.

MATTHEWS: Finally, we have the president of the United States, certainly, who`s out there aggressively doing the best he can, given his political constitution in this country. He can`t do what he feels like. But then you`ve got the Russian -- I think -- and maybe I`m a liberal optimist because I hate war. I want your views. You`re an elected official, sir.

It seems the Russians have an interest here, too. Their interests are they don`t want weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, floating around the former Soviet empire up their rear end, all over that part of the country. They don`t want that there. And they also wanted probably avoid having an Islamist regime floating around in Damascus. They`d rather have some kind of stability there.

CUMMINGS: Chris, you`re absolutely right. They`ve got a lot at stake here, too. And you know -- but Chris, one of the things I want to go back to for a moment -- you know, it was this president who said, I`m ready to go. I`m ready to strike. It was his -- I actually think it was a brilliant move and a move of strength. And although he came back and asked the Congress to come with him, the Congress, of course, was very reluctant. I think a lot of members are actually relieved.
But it is his brilliance and his strength that got Russia and Syria to finally admit that there were weapons there and to say that they wanted to move forward. Now the question is, is how serious are they? And we`ve got to make sure that -- and if I were the president, I`d be saying to them, Look, I`ve got some Congress folks who are -- you know, they`re trying to see whether you`re bluffing. And if you`re bluffing, let me know now and we`ll go another course. But I really believe you need to get this right and get it right and get it done quickly because I don`t know what those guys are going to do. So as long as the Senate is trying to put together their resolution, I actually think that gives the president leverage.

MATTHEWS: I don`t think -- I don`t think Putin wants to look like a clown, either. I think he wants to look like a tough guy who can deliver. Anyway, as many have -- people have pointed out, the president`s speech yesterday almost seemed like at some point two speeches in one. First, he made the strong, impassioned case, as you say, Mr. Cummings, for why we couldn`t let Assad get away with what he did of using weapons against his people. Let`s watch that part of the speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other way until those horrifying pictures fade from memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied. The question now is what the United States of America and the international community is prepared to do about it because what happened to those people, to those children, is not only a violation of international law, it`s also a danger to our security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: But in the end, the president transitioned to the Russian diplomatic effort I was just mentioning and the need to give that a shot before doing anything. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons and even said they`d join the chemical weapons convention which prohibits their use. It`s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments. But this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical winds without the use of force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Wow. Well, there were some harsh reviews, of course, of the president last night. John Harris wrote in Politico, "Two weeks of zig-zag foreign policy by President Barack Obama, marching to war one moment, clinging desperately to diplomacy the next, culminated Tuesday night appropriately enough in a zig-zag address to the nation that did little to clarify what will come next in the Syria crisis but shined a glaring hot light on the debate in the president`s own mind."

I still think it comes down to this. I want to go back to the congressman here. Excuse me, David. It seems to me, if you look at -- I set up the program tonight this way. We go with diplomacy and really hope the Russians deliver, perhaps through the Security Council or bilaterally. We -- we -- the president thinks he can go back to the Congress and make a stronger case at some point and win there, or he can act on his own.

Where do you set your heart and hope, sir, among those three, Russia, the president doing it alone, or your body, the Congress, doing something?

CUMMINGS: I put my hopes and my prayers on diplomacy and trying to work with Russia. Let me tell you something, Chris. The reason why so many of our constituents are against this war is they`re looking at Iraq. And they`re thinking if we can resolve this issue without a bullet being fired, and if we are able to not only deter him, Assad, and take those chemical weapons away from him -- if we can do both of those things and it not cost us a trillion dollars, like the Iraq war cost us --

MATTHEWS: Yes.

CUMMINGS: -- they say, I`ll take it. And if I were the president, I would be doing everything in my power to make this work, but at the same time, continuously say to President Assad, Look, don`t play me.

MATTHEWS: Yes (INAUDIBLE)

CUMMINGS: Don`t play me. I`m the same guy that went after Osama bin Laden.

MATTHEWS: Yes. Right. And I that`s right, Congressman. And I do think that the difference in result is clear. How would you like to have no more weapons in the hands of this guy and the war as murky as ever, or we have bombed and killed so many people over there in a retaliatory aid (ph), and the hospitals are packed with people --

CUMMINGS: That`s right.

MATTHEWS: -- that we`ve killed, and then we have to say to the world, We killed all those kids. We killed all those people because we don`t like war.

CORN: The Iraq example is telling. You go back and remember, as Bush was setting up the invasion and was threatening Saddam Hussein with force, the inspectors got in, started doing their jobs and some people were saying, See, this is only happening because Bush is talking tough. But while they were doing their jobs and actually finding not much in terms of WMD accurately (ph), what did Bush do? He didn`t stick with that. He still went ahead with the use of force.

MATTHEWS: He said because we haven`t found them is proof they`re there.

CORN: Yes. But this time -- yes, this time around, you know, whether you like what the president did in being bellicose or not, he did spur a diplomatic initiative that may, at the end of the day --

MATTHEWS: OK --

CORN: -- work if he gives it time to work.

MATTHEWS: Well, let me repeat my belief. Our war with Iraq was driven by the neocon ideologues and Dick Cheney and the president going along with it. It had nothing to do with weapons. They wanted to get even for the father and that war and everything else. It was just a war of aggression.

Thank you, David Corn and Congressman Cummings.

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