MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Syria
Interview
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Senator Barbara Boxer is a Democrat from California and has supported the possible military involvement in Syria. She`s a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. She met with the president earlier today.
Senator Boxer, your view about where this thing stands right now. There`s not going to be a vote on cloture, a vote to move ahead with debate in the Senate. So what`s the future look like in terms of Syria and whether we`re going to attack or not?
SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D), CALIFORNIA: Chris, we had the votes to move forward. We had many votes to move forward. But I think the right thing to do is to look at the developments of today.
Now, I have listened carefully to your whole setup piece and all of your guests, and no one talked about what Assad did to his people. It seems to be, you know, the politics.
And I want to take just 10 seconds to say that what Assad did is he used these vicious weapons that have been outlawed, essentially, since after World War I, and he killed his own people -- babies, infants, children. And the whole world has to look at this and respond.
Now, I give the president tremendous credit for two things, making sure the world remembered its commitments. We passed the chemical weapons convention in the United States Senate. Don`t our votes mean anything, Chris?
So I think he was strong and he was resolute. And as a result, for the first time today -- and this was glossed over -- the first time in history, Syria admitted it has a stockpile and said they would join the chemical weapons convention.
Do we believe that they will do all of that? We need a few days to see, but this was a good day for this president and it came about because he was so resolute. And if I could just say, Bob Menendez and Bob Corker of the Foreign Relations Committee on which I proudly serve, we passed that force resolution. And I think it brought us to this moment where we have a hope here that we can resolve this in a way that doesn`t require military force. And that`s what this president wants. And it`s what everybody wants, I think.
MATTHEWS: Well, the credibility of military force rests on the ability of
the president to get the Congress to go along with it. Now, you said you
have the votes. I think you said, Senator...
BOXER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: ... the votes for cloture to move ahead with debate.
BOXER: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Did you have the votes to pass a resolution in the Senate?
BOXER: I think that was a work in progress. Today, Chris, the president visited the Democratic caucus, the Republican caucus. And I can tell you, before he walked in the door, we watched those films. And I looked around at my colleagues, and I can tell you I don`t know what the vote will be, but I know there`s a group of Republicans working together with a group of Democrats right now, making sure we keep the pressure on Assad.
We keep the pressure on Assad, something good can happen. But we`re going to need a few days. So I think it`s very wise of the president to say, Let`s see how this plays out. We`ve got multi-tracks going on at the U.N., with Lavrov and Kerry, the president working with the French and the Brits and others, and right here in the United States Senate, a bipartisan group keeping the pressure on. And if we do that, we could have a good resolution here that doesn`t require military force, which, again, is what we all want, including this president.
MATTHEWS: Thank you so much, Senator Barbara Boxer, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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