MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
03/28/05
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GREGORY: Welcome back to HARDBALL. I'm David Gregory, in for Chris Matthews tonight.
It has been one week since Congress first stepped into the Terri Schiavo case by passing legislation that gave federal courts the power to review cases like this. The Schindler family's representative is back in Washington today urging Congress to get involved yet again.
With us now, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Republican Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey.
Welcome to both of you.
Congressman Smith, I want to begin with you.
Congress wants to get back involved. Why?
REP. CHRIS SMITH ®, NEW JERSEY: Well, in this case we're seeing unfolding in Florida the violation of a basic human right, the right to live. It is a gross violation of a disabled woman's human rights to be told that she can no longer be given food and nourishment, water. You know, water should never be seen as a weapon. In this case, it is a weapon that will lead to her demise eventually.
It is very clear that this is-this case is riddled with red flags. You have a guardian ad litem who says, pull the plug, another one who says, you shouldn't do it. You have a lot of-of testimony, including the most recent by Dr. Cheshire, that makes it very clear that this woman-he has changed his mind on the case.
GREGORY: Right.
SMITH: He's a neurologist. And he has changed his mind and says that she ought to be given more testing, the tube ought to be reinserted.
GREGORY: All right.
SMITH: So you have got noted neurologists making that point.
GREGORY: Congressman, you represent the people of your district.
SMITH: Yes, I sure do.
GREGORY: A recent poll found that four out of five people described as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of congressional intervention. Where's your mandate to get back involved here?
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: I think we have a constitutional mandate.
And when someone who is so vulnerable, so at risk, in this case a disabled woman.
GREGORY: Well, but wait a minute. But you don't have a constitutional mandate. The judiciary takes care of that. And the judiciary has spoken.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: We take an oath. And we-the 14th Amendment, I believe, is being abridged here, the due process, the right to life, and equal protection under the law. That's being compromised here.
This woman has not had her own legal counsel. She has not been able -
her husband since 1994 has been trying to-to no longer give her the nourishment, the kind of rehabilitation services that she needs. That's when he did a change of heart, back in 1994. And...
GREGORY: Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, does Congress have a reason, a place to get back involved here?
REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D), FLORIDA: Congress has absolutely no business in getting involved in the middle of this personal family tragedy. And we would be only adding insult to injury if we take it that much further and start to try to expand our involvement into thousands of family-family disputes and tragedies.
We have got to make sure that we allow the processes for end-of-life decisions that have been set up in each individual state, from as unique to Oregon to Texas and to Florida, to-to-to go through the normal process with a court review when there is a dispute and not jam ourselves in between family members on every personal tragic decision.
(CROSSTALK)
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: And we also have to stop the hyperbole and the politicizing of this case, which is exactly what people like Congressman Smith have been doing.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: No, no, no, excuse me. What you've been doing, Congressman Smith-Congressman Smith, I didn't talk over you. I did not talk over you.
(CROSSTALK)
GREGORY: Hold on a second. Let-let-let-let the congresswoman finish.
Go ahead.
SMITH: Sure.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: What people like Congressman Smith have been doing is politicizing this issue. They have been exaggerating and saying things like doctors have said that she's not in a persistent vegetative state.
The only physicians that have said she's not in a persistent vegetative state are those that have only examined her via videotape.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: That's factually incorrect.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, it is not factually incorrect.
GREGORY: I don't want to relitigate all that. I don't want to relitigate all of this.
Congressman Smith, I want to ask you a very pointed question. What good can Congress do now for people who are in such a state in the future? Isn't that what this is about?
SMITH: Well, the language of the original bill that we passed said, if there's a conflict among the loved ones, say, there's a conflict with the guardian and the mother and dad, as we have in this case, that would be a recourse, provided there's no living will.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: David, that legislation...
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: Let me finish. That passed the House. That's pending over on the Senate side. Then, when the Senate objected to that, a more narrow version, the one that just was attributable or applicable to Terri Schiavo, that's when that one became the bill that went down to President Bush. We have an overriding...
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That legislation...
SMITH: We have an overriding reason to be involved when disabled persons are put at risk. You know, a person could be coerced...
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Excuse me.
SMITH: ... who is a disabled person. We're not interjecting ourselves into a private family matter. Our legislation said very clearly, there had to be a conflict.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That said...
SMITH: If everybody is on board, then there is no legislation...
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: What that legislation said, David, is that...
SMITH: I have it right here.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: What that legislation said is that an interested party could actually insert itself. And it was defined so vaguely that it doesn't have to be a family member that could be a part of the dispute. It could be just about anybody. That legislation is so broad that you would have an incredible amount of federal intrusion into personal family matters far deeper than this legislation that we passed last Sunday.
GREGORY: Congresswoman, but let me ask-let me press you on this point.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Sure.
GREGORY: What is wrong, when you have a messy situation, and certainly this happens all the time, but it is not as messy as this, where there is such a conflict-why not go out of-why shouldn't society go out of its way to make it very difficult, make the decision about life or death very difficult for anybody involved?
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: David, these kinds of decisions go on every single day. And when there is a family dispute, the courts in Florida, the courts in Texas-listen, President Bush, when he was governor of Texas, signed a 1999 law that even allows a hospital to withdraw life support, over the objections of a family member. And he felt...
SMITH: That's incorrect.
(CROSSTALK)
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: No, it is not. No, it is not. And I would like to finish now. Excuse me.
(CROSSTALK)
GREGORY: Wait a second. Let the congresswoman finish.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Excuse me.
That bill allows-that law in Florida does allow a hospital, after they go to an ethics committee, with a 10-day review, just like they did for the 6-month old boy that was withdrawn from life support, over his mother's objections just last week because she could not find another facility to take him. That's exactly what it says.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: No, the Texas-it has to be corrected, for Bush's sake.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Every state-every state has a process when there is a dispute to allow the courts, which are an objective body. The Congress is not an objective body. We're a political body. And we're a partisan body.
GREGORY: Congressman, I want to go back...
SMITH: David.
GREGORY: Congressman, I want to go back to where I began here, instead of getting into the fine points of the bills that are really conjecture at this point.
Poll after poll is clear. The public is not on the side of Congress getting involved here. So, where's the mandate here to get involved? Where's the will of the people to get involved?
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: A vulnerable handicapped person who is being starved to death as we speak...
(CROSSTALK)
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That is just gross hyperbole. That's just unbelievable exaggeration.
SMITH: Is having her life taken away from her. And there is a neurologist now. And there are others, too, like Dr. Hammesfahr, who are in complete contrarian position to what Judge Greer has found. And this doctor who has gone in and spent 90 minutes with her, reviewed all of the available medical testimony, has concluded that...
(CROSSTALK)
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: He didn't examine her, Congressman Smith.
SMITH: He has changed his mind.
GREGORY: Congressman, you don't have trust in the judiciary?
SMITH: I have some trust, but I verify, just like people don't trust Congress necessarily.
GREGORY: So, you don't trust the federal or the state judiciary in this case?
SMITH: No.
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: I think there needs to be an ongoing process of trying to get it right. And that means appeals may be necessary.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: David...
SMITH: And where, in state court, they may have gotten it wrong, there needs to be...
(CROSSTALK)
SMITH: ... the ability to go to a higher court.
GREGORY: Congresswoman, 10 seconds. Final thought.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We have a real problem in this country when the direction we're moving in is that, every time Congress disagrees with a state court decision, that we're going to file legislation and shove ourselves in the middle of family disputes. It is going way too far.
GREGORY: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We have to make sure that we have objective processes to decide these things.
GREGORY: We're going to leave it right there. Thanks to both of you, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you.
GREGORY: And Congressman Chris Smith.
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