MSNBC "Meet the Press" - Transcript - National Security
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
GREGORY: Kasim Reed, mayor of Atlanta, you're outside the beltway dealing with issues like the economy and-- and government regulation and implementation of Obamacare.
MR. KASIM REED (Mayor of Atlanta, GA): Yes.
GREGORY: But you've got and you heard it from Glenn Greenwald this morning, you're hearing it from Edward Snowden, they want to keep a debate alive to get people focused on what they believe is not just controversial but actual abuse.
MR. REED: Well, here's where we are. What we know is we have a president that wants to have a path for law-abiding citizens to be removed from this process. Listen, all of these members of Congress, put a bill on the floor. All of the chatter and debate that we've been listening to can be addressed by putting a bill on the floor, but the reason that people won't put a bill on the floor is because with that bill would come responsibility. And the fact of the matter is both presidents, Bush and Obama, have done a pretty significant job, strong job of keeping this country safe. If you're the House-- House member or senator that puts a bill on the floor to address these issues, you know what, you're going to own it.
GREGORY: Right.
MR. REED: And if you think of how the country felt on the day of the Boston bombings, that horrific incident, amplify that times 25 or 50, which are the number of terrorist incidents that we have been able to interrupt because of these kind of programs. So they need to be reined in, but these folks there making all these commentaries from-- from the cheap seats, should put a bill on the floor.
GREGORY: Carly Fiorina, you know, I think the point is important because what Congress has failed to do is actually have the guts to have a debate. If you want to debate these things, then don't pass the Patriot Act in perpetuity, don't give the president authority to wage a military campaign without coming back and saying, hey, maybe we ought to review this. But Mike Hayden, who ran the NSA, was on this program last week, and he made the point that there has-- these programs cannot operate in the dark. They have to be politically sustainable. And here's what he said last week that I thought was quite interesting. We'll show it to you.
(Videotape; 16 June 2013)
GEN. MICHAEL HAYDEN (Ret. Former NSA Director/Former CIA Director): I think it's living in this kind of a democracy we're going to have to be a little bit less effective in order to be a little bit more transparent to get to do anything to defend the American people.
(End videotape)
GREGORY: Your thoughts.
MS. CARLY FIORINA (Former Chair & CEO, Hewlett-Packard/Founder & Chair, Good360): Well, Mike Hayden was a great NSA leader and he's a great friend, and I agree with both him and the Mayor. I think there is a moment of opportunity here. When we get past the specific of Edward Snowden, there is a moment of bipartisan opportunity to step back and say, how is it that we should be holding these vast complicated agencies accountable? I actually think the IRS and the NSA scandal have something in common. Whatever you think, you don't need to think the president politically motivated the IRS and you don't need to be against the NSA program to raise the profound question of when you have such vast bureaucracies. How do we hold them accountable? How does Congress meet its oversight responsibility? How do the American people come to trust government again knowing that big bureaucracies actually are held in check somehow and we have a way of determining that the people who work in them are not abusing power but are competent and ethical? That's an important debate to have.
GREGORY: Chuck-- Chuck, your comment on this, also this-- the Glenn Greenwald issue and the journalism debate that's underway this morning.
MR. TODD: Well, first of all, we've changed culturally. There is a culture of transparency. We live with it now, social media. There is this expectation particularly with a certain generation that we should know more. And the government has been slow. Government institutions have been slow to respond to that. So I think that they have to-- when the-- when the-- when the country changes culturally, government should respond to the cultural change in that-- in the country and when it comes to transparency and when it comes to what the government's doing, how much information we as a-- as a governed people expect to have, we expect to have more information, not less. We expect this so I think that's a case where the president in particular, but Congress has also failed to sort of respond to the country culturally. This issue of-- of journalism and whistleblowers, you know, I'm hesitant, you know, on one hand, I do-- I do think that the-- the Justice Department was overbearing on what they did with a-- with a number of these folks, what they did at the Associated Press, what they did to Snowden. And I've-- I've had people who are uncomfortable having phone conversations now with different sources, even on the-- the smallest of levels. So in that respect I understand the-- the skittishness on the other hand. On the other hand, you know, Glenn Greenwald, you know, how much was he involved in the plot? It's one thing as a source, but what-- what was his role-- did he have a role beyond simply being a receiver of this information? And is he going to have to answer those questions? You know, there is-- there is-- there is a point of law. He's a lawyer, I mean, he attacked the premise of your question. He didn't answer it.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, and the one thing I was saying that-- two big points to this. One, it's never been easier in human history to be a whistleblower than now
GREGORY: Right.
MR. MURPHY: like departments of whistleblowing. So the-- I know, there's not a legitimate path to hear these grievances, but I think the other point people have to understand
MR. TODD: I disagree that-- that the path within government stinks. It is not a protected path.
MR. MURPHY: Well, I-- we disagree on that.
MR. TODD: I don't think it's great.
MR. MURPHY: The digital world has changed everything. The internet is an incredibly effective tool for terrorists and outlaws. So it's not surprising that the security side of the state is trying to compete with that. So people have to understand the miracle of being able to send your cat photo around the world in a nanosecond and having all your information online, changes everything. And government is struggling with how to not let that be a free channel for bad people to use as a tool and on the other hand not be, you know, ubiquitous in-- in shattering privacy. It's a very complicated debate because of the digital revolution.
GREGORY: Robert, one of the things that-- that Chuck and his team wrote on First Read this morning is about the-- the notion of being leaderless in Washington. And one of the struggles for the leader of the government, the president, is finding his voice on this. I mean, he has spoken, but rather cryptically about the-- the utility of these programs and his view about it. Is that a problem?
MR. GIBBS: Well, one, it is hard to talk about these programs without being in some ways cryptic because
GREGORY: Sure.
MR. GIBBS: as you-- as you heard Michael Hayden talk about, as the more transparency that we give-- and we do need to give a necessary amount in order to sustain these programs politically and in public opinion, but you have to be careful as to not just talk about what Mike talked about, which is give terrorists basically the playbook for how we're monitoring their communications. But, you know, I-- I think it is-- it is important to have this debate. We do have to have something that in the end comes out of this that is-- that is politically sustainable. And, you know, you saw it beginning this week with the current head of the NSA talking about the plots that have been disrupted. I do think, again, an honest conversation about what is and what isn't being collected so that, like I said, I don't turn on the TV and I hear people talk about they literally-- there must be the millions and millions of FBI agents that are listening to every single phone call in this country. Not only is that
MR. TODD: Congress have done that.
MS. FIORINA: Well, I
MR. TODD: And you're responsible
MR. GIBBS: But not only is that not
MR. MURPHY: But a lot of them (Unintelligible) agents.
MR. GIBBS: Right. But not only is that not happening, it's incapable of happening.
MS. FIORINA: I do think one of the reasons it's important to step back and kind of begin to talk about some of these profound questions, distrust is created when people can't square the circle. So on the one hand, you hear people say, oh, we've disrupted 50 terrorist plots, and on the other hand Boston happens, we were warned about this person twice, and yet somehow that occurred. And we know that terrorists get on the internet all the time and get a how-to book to do all kinds of things. So I think people are having trouble reconciling what appears to be a lot of oversight with something like Boston. And in the end, as we all know, it's human nature. If you don't know something, you assume the worst. The American people have woken up to the fact that they don't know a whole lot about
GREGORY: Right.
MS. FIORINA: what government is involved in.
GREGORY: Let-- let me do this-- let me do this. Let me
MR. REED: bought to justice in five days.
MS. FIORINA: But they also killed and wounded many.
MR. REED: No-- absolutely, but over a ten-year period, I would take the-- take the hand that the United States has had and the diligence that law enforcement has displayed since 9/11 and it is essential to Americans that when-- when something terrible like that happens, those individuals be brought to justice.
MS. FIORINA: I agree.
MR. REED: All of these-- all of these-- all of these measures were necessary as it relates to Boston.
MS. FIORINA: I agree with you.
GREGORY: Let me get a quick-- well, let me do this. I got to get a break in here. I want to come back with our roundtable, talk about the immigration fight.
Also another big story this weekend, Paula Deen--her apology, what it means for her future after using racist language. We're back with our roundtable right after this.
(Announcements)
GREGORY: We have a live picture from Moscow. A media spectacle there now as the flight that believes-- believed to have Edward Snowden on it is being greeted by, you know, people waiting for the flight but also journalists as this will be an evolving story about Snowden's arrival in Moscow, where he eventually goes and one that will be getting a lot of attention as we move forward. Chuck Todd, yes the other question that's going to be getting a lot of attention as we move forward is, what's happening on Capitol Hill this week over immigration and whether, in fact, reform is really at hand and what we end up with in the end?
MR. TODD: I have been one of these people that says oh don't pay attention to all the chatter that immigration could get killed in the House, it may not get through the House. Then once the Senate gets 70-plus votes it will move its way. And then watching the debacle on the foreign bill, watching Speaker Boehner bring a bill-- the entire leadership bring a bill to the floor that they thought they had the votes for and they couldn't do it, I do-- you know, and it goes through this point you were bringing up with Robert, which is this-- I saw the president overseas essentially neutered, inability to do really much on Syria, not-- there isn't this sense of urgency, how do you get Russia to move off of its support of Assad and sort of this stalemate that's going there, inability to use the platform of as leader of the free world there, watching the speaker of the House, totally not being able to lead the House. Well, it makes you wonder how does immigration get the through? The Senate is working. Senate's a lonely, tiny little body here that seems to be working with some sort of diligence here. They're going to get something through. I still think it will get 70 to 75 votes. I'm no longer believing that it can get through the House.
GREGORY: Well, that's-- I mean, you know, Lindsey Graham on this program last week, Mike, was saying it's a death spiral for the GOP if they don't get reform done. But there are a lot of people in the House who might be willing to take him on on that.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah. No, look, I've been a fanatic for this issue for a long time. I'm a huge supporter of immigration reform and now the bill has been kind of loaded up with this border surge, which is a political maneuver, an expensive one, to try to get it through the conservative wing in the House and its dicey. I'm hoping it passes because I'm tired of watching democratic inaugurations in Washington, but it could very well fail.
MR. GIBBS: Leaving aside the irony that to get conservatives to support immigration reform, we should double the size of a government bureaucracy in the Border Patrol. But I do think one of the things that Mike and many Republicans that are supportive of this are going to have to face is the reality of if this dies in the House with this huge amount of border security in it, they're going to have really tough conversations with Latinos and Hispanics about what this party stands for, do they really want people to come out of the shadows.
GREGORY: Hold on. Let-- I just want to get Mayor-- Mayor Reed in on something with Paula Deen. Again, an abrupt switch-- switching of gears, but a big story this weekend--Paula Deen, of course, the-- the Food Channel has been (Unintelligible) apologizing for using the N-word in the past, really a-- a-- a debacle here from your-- from your home state, what do you make of it?
MR. REED: Well, one, I want to remind folks that if the president hadn't been re-elected, we wouldn't be having a debate about immigration. We'd be on to something else. So I don't think he's been neutered. But regarding Paula Deen, I just think it's very unfortunate. What she's basically said is she used language from her childhood and growing up in the past, but we all have to change. So I think folks are going to be hearing what she has to say over the next few weeks. I think she has apologized once-- she's going to continue to do that. But it is very unfortunate and totally unacceptable language.
GREGORY: All right. We'll take another break here. Come back in just a moment.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source