CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Darrell Issa
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
REP. DARELL ISSA (R-CA): It called for no Taliban aggressive acts and no approaching, not just the capital, but all of the regional capitals. And every time they went to do it, they got attacked by U.S.-backed troops. Usually Air Force assets and then ground Afghans.
And the Afghans were doing a reasonably good job because they had confidence in the air support they were receiving. Now having said that, we can blame all four presidents, if you want, but what we have right now is we have a -- an administration that's telling you that things are going according to the inevitable plan, but they weren't.
Just a few weeks ago they called for 11,000 special visas to help people that helped us, 11,000. Now the number appears to be 100,000 or maybe more. They had not begun identifying those people and getting them out when, in fact, in just a few days they were supposed to have completed it. So, if you could see that the plan --
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Don't you want to help all of those vulnerable Afghans and Afghan allies and partners who were helping the U.S. over the last 20 years? Don't you want to help them and get them all out?
ISSA: I'm currently doing everything I can to help the people that have been identified get out of the country. But the reality is, there's 37 million Afghans, half of them women that are now going to have a very different future than they would have had if we had kept a stable government, enforce the agreement so the Taliban couldn't come in by force and take over. Look, this is no different than Vietnam. President Richard Nixon negotiate --
ACOSTA: Originally (ph), the Afghan government was cut out -- I hate to keep interrupting. I'm sorry, Congressman. You know, the Afghan government was cut out of the peace talks by the Trump administration. They were negotiating directly with the Taliban. So they weren't a factor and that, of course, sends a message to Afghan people.
ISSA: I appreciate -- I appreciate -- Jim, Jim, Jim I appreciate that, but the fact is the agreement says that they had to come -- the Taliban had to come to a peaceful agreement with that government as part of it. So the fact that they may not have been at the table doesn't change the fact that they didn't have the unilateral authority.
But this is an absolutely no different than the fall of Saigon. In the fall of Saigon, you had Richard Nixon who had successfully achieved peace with honor with a promise to come back and protect the South Vietnamese with the help of the politicians in Washington of both parties when they were threatened by the wrongful acts of an aggressive north Vietnam backed by the chicoms.
The fact is, we didn't send troops in and they fell and the people of Vietnam have suffered for half a century as a result. And the people -- 37 plus million people are going to suffer in Afghanistan as a result. So, let's --
ACOSTA: But you supported -- you supported the pullout of the U.S. from Afghanistan, isn't that right, Congressman? Do you --
ISSA: I supported -- I supported and would continue to support an ongoing military presence, the air base for strategic purposes, always --
ACOSTA: Well, that's not a -- that's not a complete withdrawal from the country, though. That is not a complete withdrawal from the country. I mean, that is just not the case.
ISSA: We had -- we have peace in South Korea and we have 28,000 troops and two major air bases. We have peace in Europe and we have tens of thousands of troops backed in a partnership with NATO. All of that, more than half a century after those wars were clearly over. Actually approaching a century at this point in some cases.
The fact is that a military bases -- we have never been at war in Bahrain. We've never been at war in Qatar. And yet we have important bases there that those countries help host for their mutual benefit. Afghanistan had no requirement for us to pull out of Bagram. We had strategic reasons.
For the last weeks and months I've been talking about the absurdity of Predator observation aircraft and others having to fly for five to eight hours just to get to an area to look at it where previously they could do it in a matter of minutes.
This has been a failure to plan or a plan to fail. Either way, it is a decision made by this administration and you can't blame the last administration. If the last administration was wrong, then, darn it, go ahead and reverse it.
But if you're going to say the last administration was right, you could at least execute it properly. They clearly were not planning to take the people out that they're now taking out. They hadn't identified names. There's a long list of --
ACOSTA: You know, that process was decimated during the Trump administration, as you know, congressman. You know, some of the pro- immigration or anti-immigration hawks, I should say, inside the Trump administration has all but shut down much of that process for bringing those folks into the country. And so the Biden administration by and large is having to rebuild part of that.
ISSA: I appreciate -- I appreciate you're saying it and I appreciate it's your opinion.
[17:04:59]
The fact is, although the administration reduced the number of certain types of visas, those number of visas rise and fall regularly and they -- and the system was not shut down. But that doesn't really say anything about identifying --
ACOSTA: Well, the numbers plummeted. The numbers plummeted towards the end of the Trump administration. I want to move to one final thing, Congressman, before we go, and that is I want to ask you about the recall election to replace the California governor there, Gavin Newsom.
Right now the Republican front-runner is an outspoken talk show host named Larry Elder. He's made a number of disparaging remarks about women. I want to ask -- I want you to listen to this. Let me ask you about this on the other side.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
LARRY ELDER, CONSERVATIVE TALKS SHOW HOST: When you look at all these women that have marched, something like 2 million women, Donald Trump has probably gotten more obese women off the couch and in the streets working out than Michelle Obama did in eight years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ACOSTA: Do you think Larry Elder should be the next governor of California?
ISSA: I think Larry Elder, with tens of thousands of hours on the air, entertaining and thought-provoking, if that's the --
ACOSTA: You know, that's not entertaining. That's disgusting. What he had said is disgusting. I mean, that's not entertainment.
ISSA: Well, I appreciate -- I appreciate, Jim, your saying its disgusting. That certainly was, by most people's standards, a quip of a radio talk show person who, like plenty of the famous ones, including Rush Limbaugh, who used various statements including some bombastic statements from time to time to make a point. In tens of thousands of hours, if that's the best you have, you don't really have anything on Larry Elder.
ISSA: Oh, there's lots of other material, as you know, Congressman. We don't have time to go through all of it, but it sounds as though you're saying that Larry Elder would make a better governor for the state of California than Gavin Newsom? Is that -- is that what you're saying? Talk to --
ISSA: You know what, just - there's 41 people running or 44 people running, and I even suspect the vast majority of them would go in the right direction better than our current governor. No question at all. The reason that decline to states support the recall that Republicans support the recall and a vast amount of Democrats.
When you get a state that's two-thirds Democrat and 50 percent plus or minus a percent, believe that the governor should be recalled, you are talking about people who have lost faith in their governor. So if the fact is, it's not Republican Darrell Issa saying it.
It's the polls that consistently show that half of Californians have lost faith in this governor because he does things like say, well, you've got to wear a mask and can't be indoors and then he goes to a $2,000 a plate dinner at the French Laundry with no masks and laughs at everyone as they drink wine indoors.
So, we've put up with our governor. It is, in fact, a failed administration, one in which the lights are going off every time we have a hot day. We don't have enough water. And we have higher unemployment with great problems in a state that fundamentally has everything going for it, except the people in Sacramento.
ACOSTA: All right.
ISSA: So, the voters will make a decision on it. I support the fact that Larry Elder has been a thoughtful spokesperson, but he's also been a commentator. He said a lot of things, but if in tens of thousands of hours, you find a few lines, that's not going to get people to forget that he is a thoughtful conservative who has a lot of great ideas.
ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Darrell Issa, thanks for coming on. We appreciate it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source