MSNBC "Rachel Maddow Show"- Transcript: War Against ISIL

Interview

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Joining us now is a member of Congress who has been pushing as hard as
anyone for Congress to take an authorization vote on this war, Congressman
Adam Schiff of California is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee.

Congressman, thank you so much for your time tonight.

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: Good to be with you.

MADDOW: So, you have been one of a few persistent voices in Congress
saying Congress needs to vote to authorize this war against ISIS. Do you
now feel like it`s finally going to happen?

SCHIFF: I do, and it`s obviously been a very long time and coming. We`re
almost six months into this war. Before the elections, I think the
administration and members were content to going into elections without
having to have a potentially difficult debate and vote on this. And then,
after the elections, there was a desire to put it off even more.

But we kicked that can as far down the road as we possibly can and I`m
grateful now that the administration is deeply engaged with Congress and I
hope we will have a draft and a vote fairly soon.

MADDOW: So, you, of course, have written your own language for how you
would propose that Congress could authorize this war. I mean, should
Congress be writing this language yourself? Should it be coming from the
White House? It seems like there was a very esoteric and abstract debate
about that for a long time. Now, it does seem like there will be language
coming from the White House.

SCHIFF: Well, we did have a long debate over that, and, frankly, the
Congress itself, whether we`re usually the institution that drafts it or
the administration does, it`s the Congress`s interest in it that is most at
stake. If the administration continues to rely on these two old
authorizations, it doesn`t in any way eviscerate the administration`s power
to make war, but it does mean that the congressional check and balance is
seriously diminished.

So, whether it should have come from one quarter or the other, we have the
most at stake here, and I think we should have done more proactively to
make this happen. But ultimately, it is happening now, and it`s going to
be a tough call because there are a number of very important issues to be
hammered out.

MADDOW: We had a minor miracle on this show this week when a Republican, a
serving conservative Republican senator agreed to come on this show. It
was Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. And we`re talking about the veteran
suicide prevention legislation that has passed and the president is
expected to sign soon.

But I asked him if he thought there was any other thing, any other area of
policy where there might be a true bipartisan vote, or at least a
nonpartisan vote where people`s party affiliation didn`t predict how they
were going to come down on the issue, and the one thing that he singled was
an authorization for the use of military force.

He proposed to me as a conservative Republican senator, that he thinks this
vote is going to be unpredictable and not driven by party politics.

Do you agree with him on that?

SCHIFF: I agree with him in part. I mean, there won`t -- this bill won`t
break down along complete party lines. But there are some substantial
differences between the parties on this. By and large, most of the
conservative Republicans want to give the president a very broad
authorization without limits in time, place, or manner. And I think many
Democrats feel very differently. We also support an authorization, but
want it narrowly tailored so that we don`t get another massive ground
occupation of Syria or Iraq, so that there are time limits on this.

And I think importantly, that there is at least a time limit set on the old
authorization, the 2001 authorization, because if we should pass something
new that is ISIL-only focused, and even if that sunsets, if we don`t sunset
the old one, then when the new one expires the future president can really
say, I`m going to rely on the old one just the way President Obama did.

So, to have any real limitation in terms of time, we not only have to
sunset the new one, but we have to at least sunset the old one.

MADDOW: Right. And without that authorization that`s specific in terms of
time, then, an authorization passed in 2001 becomes a permanent
authorization for a war whenever a president feels like it, with no way in
for Congress at all. Boy, is this a debate that needs to happen.

Congressman Adam Schiff of California, you`ve done more than anybody else
to make this happen. Thanks very much for your time tonight, and
congratulations on making it this far.

SCHIFF: Thanks, Rachel.

MADDOW: Thanks.

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