MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

The U.S. House of Representatives is now taking up the fight for the president's plan in Iraq. Will they vote to reject the president's course, the surge or will it call for timetable or will they try to actually cut off war funding?

Here now to take up that fight, Democratic Congressman Steve Israel of New York and Republican Congressman Eric Cantor of Virginia. Congressman, let me ask you Congressman Israel, are you confident there will be a vote next week on the resolution, nonbinding, whether we should be increasing the number of troops over there?

REP. STEVE ISRAEL, (D) NY: There will be a vote and there's going to be a bipartisan vote on a resolution that says two things. Number one, we emphatically support our troops an number two, we are opposed to a troop increase. And that's going to be bipartisan.

MATTHEWS: What is the soldier who is going into Baghdad kicking down one door after another, scared to death there is somebody with a gun or a bomb, what is he to think of that resolution?

ISRAEL: That soldier is going to think that the United States Congress want as different strategy that the strategy this president has put them through.

MATTHEWS: So he's getting killed for a wrong strategy?

ISRAEL: And that the United States Congress doesn't want additional soldiers to go in with the wrong strategy this administration has tried.

MATTHEWS: Congressman Cantor, what is this soldier going door to door in Baghdad think of this resolution when he reads about it or wherever else he reads about it?

REP. ERIC CANTOR, ® VA: I agree with your point or your implied point. I think it's very difficult to even fathom that any soldier in the field is going to feel good about what Steve is saying that on the one hand we don't support the mission but on the other hand we're going to fund the troops.

I think that's really a ridiculous position. At the end of the day I think the policy that will go forward is that this congress will continue to support the mission in Iraq and that's a message that we ought to be sending to the soldiers in the field.

ISRAEL: Well, Chris, we're going to have a resolution that he emphatically supports our troops. In fact it's Democrats who have been supporting our troops. It was a Republican administration that sent troops to Iraq under funded, under equipped. We're going to pass a resolution, spend three days debating that resolution. It's going to be inclusive. And we're going to emphatically .

MATTHEWS: What will you accomplish with that?

ISRAEL: We're going to accomplish two things. We're not going to allow funding to be cut for the troops in Iraq right now. We're not going to make the mistake Republicans have made with respect to force protection and equipment and we're going to send a bipartisan message to the president of the United States that adding 20,000 more troops playing this game of whack mole, being asked to play this game of whack a mole is a bad idea. We need a better strategy.

MATTHEWS: Go ahead.

CANTOR: Chris, let me just step in there. I'm glad to hear Steve thinks we're going to have a bipartisan resolution, that all is well on the Democrats' side of the aisle but the bottom line is Dennis Kucinich is walking around the house as we speak with a letter signed by 70 some of Steve's Democrat closing insisting that the language about funding the troops does not or will not be included in the resolution. So I don't think there's an agreement. If it is I don't know what that says about the anti-war movement on the other side of the aisle.

So at the end of the day I think I think it's a ridiculous position for someone it take to think that the soldiers in the field will respond well when you say you're not supporting what they're doing but, oh, by the way, we'll pay for it.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about this war is-war, this word is being used like it's a regular war with an army against another army with the other side, you try to get them to capitulate. When we got to Berlin, we knew we won the war because the allied forces reached that city and overtook the capital of Nazi Germany and won. Hitler was dead, the top guys were hanged. And that was it, we know we won, because the bad guys gave up, they lost. We know the same thing happened in Japan because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Who has to surrender in Iraq for this war to end? Congressman Cantor, be specific. Who is the person who has to sign a surrender document? Who is this person?

CANTOR: I think your point is a good one. We're in a new wage war against an enemy unlike that which we've had before. The enemy-you're right. There's a lot of enemies out there. We're in a long-term war with an irreconcilable wing of Islam, number one. We're at war certainly with the Sunni insurgents. We're at war with some of the Shias. Muqtada al-Sadr. And certainly, ultimately, the drivers, the funders. Those providing help and resources in rogue regimes such as that in Tehran. That's who we're at war with.

MATTHEWS: How many wars are we going to have to fight in our lifetime? You want to go to war with Iran now?

CANTOR: I'm not saying we should take anything off the table.

MATTHEWS: Do you think we should go to war with Iran?

CANTOR: I don't think that's responsible for to us take that option off the table right now.

MATTHEWS: I'm asking you, do you think we should go to war? Yes or no?

CANTOR: I think all options including the military option should be left on the table.

MATTHEWS: This isn't an option question. This isn't multiple choice.

Right now, February 8, 2007, do you believe we should go to war with Iran?

CANTOR: I'll leave that decision up to the commanders on the ground and those in our military ...

MATTHEWS: Commanders on the ground whether we go to war with another country?

CANTOR: I will leave the decisions in the military arena to-this is exactly the point.

MATTHEWS: This is Barry Goldwater taking. He used to say that.

Regional commanders can decide whether we want it use nuclear weapons. You're obviously saying soldiers should decide which country to go to war with.

CANTOR: I'm here to say the military experts are those which might come up with the recommendation to the commander in chief that makes the decision. It is silly for us to expect .

MATTHEWS: I'm not talking - I just asked you a very simple question .

CANTOR: We're going 535 commanders in chief .

MATTHEWS: I've never heard of anything like this in my life. Never in my life.

ISRAEL: Congress has a constitutional responsibility to decide whether we're going to war or not. That's what we're elected to do. Those are the debates we should have.

CANTOR: Every president since .

MATTHEWS: The idea of declaring war as a soldier is unimaginable.

We'll be right back to talk HARDBALL with the two congressmen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. We're back with Republican Congressman Eric Cantor to of Virginia and Democratic Congressman Steve Israel of New York.

Let me ask you Congressman Cantor, very clearly, to clear up our discussion, if the U.S. Congress were to discuss tomorrow morning whether to declare war on Iran, would you vote yay?

CANTOR: This congress is not going to do that because it's the commander in chief's role, Chris, and Steve knows that as well. It's not Congress that will ask for that. It is the commander in chief that will make that decision. Every president whether republican or Republican or Democrat since the War Powers Act was in place has interpreted it as being the commander in chief's role to do that.

MATTHEWS: Would you support the president if he declared war in Iran tomorrow morning? As things are right now.

CANTOR: I will support what is in the best interest of securing this homeland and providing our troops with what they need and if there is a threat on the ground in Iraq and in the region that our troops need us, I will support them and that's exactly the point on this Iraqi resolution because the Democrats want to have their cake and eat it, too. This is a nonbinding resolution. It's a sense of Congress. It doesn't mean anything. In fact it pollutes the message and sends the wrong message to our troops.

MATTHEWS: Congressman Israel, what's the role of Congress in war and peace?

ISRAEL: Congress under the Constitution of the United States authorizes war. The War Powers Act requires Congress to vote on whether we should insert troops into hostile situations. The law is clear.

CANTOR: Absolutely not.

ISRAEL: Come on, Eric.

CANTOR: As a commander in chief the constitution gives .

MATTHEWS: Congressman Cantor, why did the president ask for approval of Congress before he went to Iraq?

CANTOR: I certainly think his counsel gave him guidance why he need to do that but the Constitution gives the commander in chief the right to send our troops into battle.

MATTHEWS: Maybe when it comes to war we don't need a Congress according to that. Thank you very much Congressman Cantor, thank you Congressman Israel.

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