MSNBC Hardball - Transcript

MSNBC Hardball - Transcript
Wednesday, August 3, 2005

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MATTHEWS: Well, and now the House Government Reform Committee, which held those hearings back in March, is requesting from Major League Baseball that documents relating to Palmeiro's drug tests. They want the drug test results on paper. And Palmeiro says he will cooperate with the committee.

Congressman Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts is a member of the committee and is now with us from Boston.

Congressman Lynch, are you—you want to get ahold of those documents, those drug test results, right, from Palmeiro?

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Certainly. It would—it would answer the question that Mr. Canseco has raised about how long it was in his system and whether or not it is from a residual use.

MATTHEWS: What difference does it make whether he lied before and was using before and is found out now or he's been using lately?

LYNCH: Well, if he was using steroids during his testimony or prior to his testimony, obviously, he has committed perjury and has tried to mislead the Congress in an ongoing investigation.

MATTHEWS: I see.

LYNCH: So, it has a lot to do about what happens next.

MATTHEWS: Would you like to see him charged with perjury if he did—if there is evidence now, hard evidence, through a drug test, that he was in fact using steroids back then, before the testimony?

LYNCH: Well...

MATTHEWS: Because there's only two options here, as you point out. And you elucidate this. If he has used the drugs, and never used them before since the hearings, that's almost insane, to think he did that.

LYNCH: Yes.

MATTHEWS: So, his defense—or the defense that Canseco offered on this show last night was that he may have used them a while ago, in other words, before he testified that he never had. Therefore, he is guilty of perjury.

LYNCH: Right.

I'm not sure if Canseco was just offering his opinion. Certainly, Palmeiro never contested the positive result on the test. So, we haven't actually got him in. He's agreed today to—verbally—to release all the documents. However, I believe that the committee needs to get a similar release from the union, because the confidentiality agreement is part of a collective bargaining agreement.

So, we need to go to that—that step as well.

MATTHEWS: Yes, but assuming you get by that step, do you think this guy should be hit with a perjury charge?

LYNCH: Well, if he meets the requirements, yes.

We're trying to protect the process. When people come before Congress and they are sworn to testify truthfully, there have to be consequences when they do not do so. So, this is about the integrity of the congressional process. It's not about going after Mr. Palmeiro.

MATTHEWS: We had Ray Garibaldi on last night, who lost his son to steroid use. He's an athlete and he was trying to make it. As a young man, he was using steroids to get ahead in that baseball career.

There are a young people out there now watching this program right now, probably, who may be in their 18-year-old eras, 18 to 21. They're thinking about how they can break into the big leagues. Is this 10-day suspension enough to turn them off to drugs?

LYNCH: It's really a joke, when you think about it.

If a person—if a nonathlete or noncelebrity is convicted of simple possession of a schedule three substance, like these steroids, there's a potential for a year in jail. This—in this case, Palmeiro is looking at a 10-day suspension. He still makes over $2.8 million a year. He is rumored to be considered for the Hall of Fame. So, it really—the penalty in baseball is really an incentive to take the chance.

I mean, there's very little consequences, other than his reputation, of course, for Mr. Palmeiro.

MATTHEWS: You're not at all prejudiced, being a Sox fan, are you here?

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: I'm serious.

LYNCH: Well, I'll take the...

MATTHEWS: I mean, you might be tougher on it. Would you be just as tough on a Sox player?

LYNCH: Oh, of course. Of course.

MATTHEWS: And let's take a look at something that Jose Canseco said here last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANSECO: I want people to understand—I have said this many times -

· my attack was never on these athletes. I respect these athletes greatly.

What I needed was one of these athletes who I named in the actual book who are well-known individuals to come forth and say, you know what, what Jose is saying is 100 percent true. My major attack and my only attack was on Major League Baseball and the Players Association.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CANSECO: Because I think that they ought to be, you know, exploited and found out for the corrupt methods they use, for letting steroids in the game, for endorsing steroids in the game of baseball.

Now, all of a sudden, you know, Bud Selig says: I don't know anything about it. I never saw anything.

That's ridiculous. It's the biggest ongoing joke on the planet right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Congressman Lynch, you're concerned about the rights of labor and collective bargaining agreements. And, certainly, many of us here as well in this country generally, it seems. I respect unions.

Let me ask you, though. Do you the unions have done the job here? Is it fair to say that Canseco has got it right by saying the Players Association has not been aggressive in getting rid of steroids?

LYNCH: Well, I don't think it is a union problem.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Why not a union? Why isn't it a union problem?

LYNCH: Well—well...

MATTHEWS: If they're protecting the players' rights and saying...

LYNCH: Yes.

MATTHEWS: ... they shouldn't be tested—you watched those lawyers in your committee. They were up there. They were all over the place trying to defend the players.

LYNCH: Hey, I'm a former union president myself and also an attorney that represented a lot of unions.

I always thought a very strong anti-drug policy was a good thing for my union members. This is one case where they have turned a blind eye to what's going on in professional sports. But that's—that's not the typical position of unions.

(CROSSTALK)

LYNCH: They usually want a strong anti-drug policy to make a better work force.

MATTHEWS: Well, of course it is also for safety reasons at the workplace.

But about—but let's get back to MLB, Major League Baseball. Do you think Bud Selig, do you believe the whole Major League establishment has been benefiting from all these home runs all these years and big muscles that produced these home runs?

(CROSSTALK)

LYNCH: Absolutely.

Following the strike, I think the thing that brought people back to baseball was the big home run contest between Sosa and McGwire. And, in a very real way, steroid use, if those two gentlemen were guilty of it—and there's some evidence that they were—they put people back into the seats. So, baseball is benefiting by—by the performance enhancement of the individual players, which makes it even more troublesome in terms of eradicating steroid use.

MATTHEWS: Right.
Congressmen, when you and I were growing up in the '50s and '60s, baseball players were skinny, wiry guys. They weighed under 200 pounds. Do you think it was drug use or weight training that got them so strong and big?

LYNCH: I think that it's a combination of both.

I think that there's some steroid use out there now. I think we probably have it moving in the right direction. And I think, if we come up with serious penalties, like the International Olympic Commission has, that we can do this. I know that Tom Davis, a Republican from Virginia, and Henry Waxman from California have the Clean Sports Act, that we're—we're trying to put through Congress.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

LYNCH: So, so, I think—I think this—this may help us, this recent revelation about a player who had everything to lose, but who still apparently put steroids in his body.

MATTHEWS: OK.

LYNCH: You know, he had the Hall of Fame and the 3,000 hits and the endorsements and, really, the respect and admiration of the entire country.

MATTHEWS: Is Rafael Palmeiro in trouble with your committee, sir?

LYNCH: He may be. I think it's too early to say.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Congressman Stephen Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts.

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