CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Syria

Interview

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TAPPER: Let's bring in Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Democrat from California. She is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and Homeland Security Committee and she voted against the measure to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels in the House yesterday.

Congresswoman, thanks for joining us.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel once again today warned that ISIS presents an immediate threat to U.S. citizens in Iraq and American interests in the Middle East. Do you agree?

SANCHEZ: Certainly. ISIS does present a problem. They are a problem. We need to do something about it.

I just don't believe that the plan that they have put together to arm these moderates, as they call them, Syrians will work.

TAPPER: Why not? And what do you think should be done?

SANCHEZ: Well, for example, some of the moderates have gone over and become part of ISIS.

I was told by some of my Syrian-American community they won't be fighting each other. Some of these moderate Syrians supposedly will turn weapons on Assad. That's where their real focus is. Who are these moderates? Who will have a command-and-control structure? Who will be the commander in chief?

These are all questions that I would like answers to, and we certainly didn't get them yesterday before we voted, and I didn't get them out of Secretary Hagel yet.

TAPPER: But, Congresswoman, if it is a threat, ISIS, and you don't trust the so-called moderate Syrian rebels, then what should be done to stop ISIS, which you have acknowledged needs to be stopped?

SANCHEZ: It does need to be stopped.

But even a larger question, Jake, is, if we can stop it, and we really need the neighbors in that neighborhood to actually stop them with us -- it cannot just be ourselves. But when we stop them, there will be a void, just as when we thought we had eliminated, to a larger extent, al Qaeda.

So what comes into a void? Something else will come, unless people have rebuilt their lives, rebuilt their homes, gotten an education, have jobs. We can't do that in that area. The neighborhood has to do that.

And I do not believe that these countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others are willing to do that or are at the point where they have agreed to put aside their differences and work together to get their region into a better spot.

TAPPER: OK. But that doesn't really answer the question, with all due respect, of what needs to be done.

SANCHEZ: Well, what needs to be done is that we need to get buy-in from all of these countries, first and foremost. Otherwise, we're going to have the same problem we're having in Iraq. We're going to have the same problem that we're having in Afghanistan.

I don't believe that we should be there if that's the case. If these countries cannot sit down and get their act together with respect to this, we have no business being there.

TAPPER: You seem frustrated by the process. You noted that the vote was yesterday, while the hearing was today. Do you think there's a rush to war here? Are you colleagues, is the Obama administration giving this enough consideration?

SANCHEZ: Look, certainly, we're in an election time. Some people want to get back to campaign.

But we have got seven weeks now. We're leaving early. We're leaving tonight. We could have stayed. We could have stayed over the weekend. We could stay next week, as we're supposed to be here still on the 1st of October. So, yes, I do believe that this is a rush.

TAPPER: A rush to war?

SANCHEZ: By any other -- you know, a rose by any other name. I believe that we are getting ourselves into another war.

TAPPER: Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

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