CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Barbara Lee

Interview

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BROWN: Joining me now, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California.

Congresswoman, nice to see you. In 2001, you were the sole member of Congress to vote against authorizing U.S. military force in Afghanistan. You were vilified for your vote that day. What was your reasoning then and do you stand by what you said that day?

REP. BARBARA LEE (D-CA): Thank you, Pam. Thanks for inviting me to be with you for a few minutes. Yes, I stand by that vote. This was a 60- word authorization to use military force. It was a blank check that set the stage for perpetual war, forever wars. It also put forth the framework to keep Congress out of performance constitutional responsibility. You know, the Congress does-- the Constitution requires the president to come to Congress to ask for an authorization to use military force.

This authorization was so overly broad that the executive power now has full range to use force and that's why I'm trying to repeal this, and having said that now -- well, also, then I knew that there was no military solution in Afghanistan and you can just look at the history of Afghanistan and, in fact, I was very concerned that it was passed just three days after the horrific attacks against our nation and had no strategy, no plan, no exit strategy, and I'm the daughter of a military officer of 25 years in the military, and I knew good and well then that we should not give that kind of executive power, that kind of authorization from the Congress to the president.

So now where do we go from here? We have to make sure that every American citizen and every Afghan ally, all of our NATO friends and allies who are in Afghanistan, everyone who should get out should get out, and we need to provide the resources for that and we should make sure that the evacuation plans go as smoothly as they can go and I'm glad the President really did not paint a rosy picture. He said that it's dangerous, it's going to be difficult, but we've got to do everything we can do to help save lives.

BROWN: He did say that today. But he also said that every American in Afghanistan will make it home safely. How can he give that assurance if he's also saying in the same speech that a lot could go wrong?

LEE: Well, he did say a lot to go wrong also. But we have to be committed to making sure that every American and every Afghan ally can get out of Afghanistan safely. We have to have that as a goal. We cannot do anything less.

I mean, the Taliban, they're brutal. You see what's taking place now, and we cannot allow the country, the people who have supported the United States through this last 20 years to be subject to getting their lives taken away from them. And that's exactly what could happen.

And so the President has been very honest, I think, he is saying everything that the country needs to hear in a very sobering manner. He is telling the truth. And in fact, I'm still supportive of his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

He knows good and well, and he said it over and over again, that if we stay there, keeping our troops in harm's way, which they have done, everything we have asked them to do, and we need to honor and salute our troops for doing their job, that then another 10, 15, 20 years will still be there, who knows what would take place in the in Afghanistan, given its history, and there's no military solution.

So that was the right decision.

BROWN: I'm just going to jump in -- I am going to jump in because the decision, it has been conflated with the execution, and so there are two separate things here. There is the decision to withdraw. President Biden ultimately made that decision, even though the deal with the Taliban was struck under the Trump administration.

But then there is the execution aspect of this and we are seeing the images on the ground, the chaos people desperate to get out, people who have already lost their lives, Afghan allies who have lost their lives. So what do you say about the withdrawal? What do you think could have been better in that regard?

LEE: Sure. And I'm one who says that this was poorly planned, that people's lives are in danger. For the life of me, I don't know why when we knew that we had a deadline to get out, why in the world, we did not have the appropriate plans in place.

We know there would be chaos. I mean, that's to be expected. But we knew early on that we needed to execute and provide for the Special Immigrant Visas. We needed to get the planning in place. So we have to drill down and have oversight hearings and get the Congress more involved so we know exactly what happened, so it will never happen again.

I chair the Subcommittee on the Appropriation Committee that provides for the resources for diplomacy and development. And my subcommittee needs to know very quickly if we need more resources to help protect women and children and what to do to make this run smoothly. So nobody is plotting this. No one is looking at this through rose colored glasses.

This has been a very perilous evacuation and the President said, it's going to be very dicey. It's going to be dangerous and we have to do everything we can do, Pam, to get this done.

BROWN: We sure do. All right, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, thank you so much for your time on this Sunday.

LEE: Thank you.

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