MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: On the Senate Letter to Iran and Fighting ISIS

Interview

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SCHULTZ: Joining me tonight, Senator Chris Coons, Delaware. Senator,
always a pleasure, good to have you with us.

SEN. CHRIS COONS, (D) DELAWARE: Yes.

SCHULTZ: What do you make of -- the Republicans now playing the
"blame-game" on the President, trying to reverse this after taking so much
criticism of sending this letter to Iran?

COONS: Like shifting the blame isn`t a constructive path forward
here. The 47 Republicans Senators who sent a letter directly to the
ayatollah of Iran at this very delicate stage of the negotiations. Were
not acting responsibly and I think more inducting (ph) in America`s best
interest. And that was covered in some detail today by Secretary Kerry in
a hearing about the authorization of the use of military force against
ISIS.

Secretary Carter, the Secretary of Defense, General Dempsey, Chairman
of Joint Chiefs, joined Secretary Kerry as we had a very somber, a
conversation about the cost of war in front of us.

As you`ve said just a few minutes ago before this segment, we`re
mourning the lost of 11 members of our Armed Forces who were killed in a
training accident just off the coast of Florida, four soldiers, seven
marines. It`s a reminder of the very real human cost of conflict. This is
not an appropriate time for us to be turning this into another partisan
bickering fight.

It undermines our president`s ability to negotiate. It undermines our
standing in the world and it is unfortunate destruction from the very real
and important issues in front of us whether we should be authorizing the
President to continue the work against ISIS, and whether we should be
preparing for a strong deal of these nuclear...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

COONS: ... negotiations resolve appropriately.

SCHULTZ: But, Senator, earlier today, Hillary Clinton tweeted out the
letter undermines American leadership and no one considering running for
commander-in-chief should be signing on. Would you follow that line of
thinking, what`s your response to that?

COONS: Well, what Secretary Kerry said, today, are reflected on what
Vice President Biden also said in a public statement. They are both former
chairs of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee. They both said that the
President relays on the power to reach executive agreements hundreds every
year to protect our troops, to engage in commerce.

And as Secretary Clinton is pointing out, anyone who hopes to be
commander-in-chief shouldn`t be signing on to a letter like this that
undermines the power of the President as commander-in-chief, as a chief
executive of our government, to be able to enter into the sorts of
agreements that protect our troops, that allow for air travel, that allow
for hundreds of different topics to be negotiated and agreed upon between
United States and other (inaudible) nations...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

COONS: ... it`s just not responsible.

SCHULTZ: I mean if you listen to the Republicans and the guy that
started all of this, Sen. Cotton, he thinks he is saving the country from
such a horrific deal. That this maybe unprecedented in the way they have
done this, but it`s so bad and so dangerous they just have to do it. What
about that?

COONS: Well, look, there are many of us who have real concerns about
Iran, who don`t trust Iran, who think that there are elicit efforts to get
a nuclear weapon, post a real threat to the region, to Israel, to United
States.

But if you`ve got policy disagreements with our President, as
apparently Sen. Cotton and others do. The place for that is the Will of
the Senate, you should write up, Ed, give speeches, persuade your fellow
Senators to be prepared to take on a challenges to this deal if resolved,
if announced. But to write directly to the Head of State of a foreign
government in a way that was frankly both constitutionally inaccurate and
somewhat kind of descending, is not constructive in this environment.

We really need to focus...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

COONS: ... on the issues right in front of us and if I might, Ed, one
thing I raise in the hearing today in addition to the human cost of war is
the physical cost of war.

We can`t be barreling forward towards expanding the conflict with ISIS
with no plan for how to pay for it. So I`m going to introduce an amendment
that calls on Congress to have a clear plan for how we would pay for this
new war against ISIS. I think we need to focus on the (inaudible)...

SCHULTZ: Well, give us a number, Senator.

COONS: Well, I think we have...

SHCULTZ: Senator, give us a number if you can, quickly. What are we
talking about?

COONS: It`s proposed to be billions of dollars a year probably less
than $10 billion a year in the first few years. But like the Afghanistan
conflict, I don`t think we know. At the outset just how want it may go...

SCHULTZ: Yeah.

COONS: ... or how much it may cost and we should be prepared to pay
for it.

SCHULTZ: Accuracy in numbers in war, never have gone together, no
doubt. Senator Chris Coons great to have you with us tonight, I appreciate
your time.

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