CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview With Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
TAPPER: Joining me now is Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. She is a major in the Army National Guard and serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Congresswoman, good to see you, as always.
Saudi sources telling "The New York Times" that the regime plans to pin the blame on a high-ranking intelligence official with close ties to MBS who they say this intelligence official didn't have the appropriate authority to act.
Do you buy it?
REP. TULSI GABBARD (D), HAWAII: We have heard different versions of statements coming from the Saudi government as the coverage has really exploded around what actually happened to Mr. Khashoggi.
I think this is really an impetus, this should an impetus for you, for those in the media, for those in the public to challenge this administration, to challenge many members of Congress who claim that Saudi Arabia is a close ally.
This should challenge us to look at the facts of Saudi Arabia's record, beyond what has happened to this journalist, things like Saudi Arabia being a theocratic dictatorship, Saudi Arabia being this number one exporter of the extreme Wahabi Salafist ideology that is fueling terrorist groups and like ISIS and al Qaeda, to the tune of billions of dollars a year, Saudi Arabia waging, continuing to wage the centuries-old sectarian war, the Sunni-Shia war, in which part of that war, they are funding, financing, providing weapons and support to terrorist groups like al Qaeda in places like Syria, and also waging a genocidal war in Yemen that has killed tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians and children.
And creating what the U.N. has called the worst humanitarian crisis in a generation, with eight million people who are starving and sick because of this Saudi-U.S. coalition's blockade in Yemen. So this should force this tougher conversation here and to be confronted with the facts that Saudi Arabia, in fact, is not our ally.
Their interests do not align with ours.
TAPPER: I have a question about the larger U.S.-Saudi relationship in a second, but before I do can, I do want to drill down just on the Khashoggi incident, if we can.
Sources telling CNN the president's son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, has cautioned the president to proceed cautiously before making any decisions on what to do.
What do you think of that, and what do you think about Secretary Pompeo saying the Saudis need more time in their investigation into what happened?
GABBARD: Well, I think these are all just examples of how this president is not putting the well-being of our country first and frankly is instead kind of behaving like the businessman that he is, as though this country is a corporation.
The problem is, he is a businessman without a conscience. So he's thinking and he's talked about how, well, we don't want to ruin our relationship with Saudi Arabia because of this $110 billion arms deal and all the money that that will make, but not looking at what the consequences of these decisions are, not looking at the atrocities and this genocide that Saudi Arabia is waging in Yemen today.
[16:10:01]
So when you look at all of these kind of different hedging and excuses and things that are coming forward, it points, again, to this stark fact and reality that this so-called alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia really shouldn't exist at all, because our interests are not aligned.
TAPPER: Now, you have called for the U.S. to suspend its involvement and support of this Saudi-led war in Yemen, where thousands, if not millions of individuals, innocent people have been killed or are under the threat of starvation right now.
Beyond that, what actions do you want the Trump administration to take in the wake of Khashoggi's death?
GABBARD: Well, first of all, we need to end this Saudi-U.S. alliance, period. We need to stop selling them these precision-guided missiles, these weapons and these arms that they are using to kill civilians in places like Yemen. We need to end our U.S. military support in Yemen. And this is
something that I want to talk about a little bit, because there has not been much focus placed on what the United States' role has been in partnering with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, something that began in 2015 under the Obama administration, continuing now through the Trump administration, where our U.S. military are refueling Saudi bomber planes.
They are dropping U.S.-made bombs that we have supplied to them. We are providing them with intelligence and targeting support, as has been reported by this administration, and, therefore, very complicit in this genocidal war that Saudi Arabia is waging in Yemen.
As you said, it's causing millions of Yemeni people to starve and suffer, what -- to speak of the innocent civilians and children to the tune in the tens of thousands who have been killed because of this war. This must end now.
We have legislation introduced within Congress. We are trying to push and force a vote on this to end that support for Saudi Arabia in this war in Yemen now.
TAPPER: Let me ask you a question, because you got a lot of criticism after you met with Bashar al-Assad in Syria. You came here. We talked about it.
And one of the arguments you made is, look, this guy is the leader of Syria, whether we like him or not. We need to work with him in order to stop the bloodshed in Syria. We need to work with him to stabilize that country.
What do you say to a critic who says it sounds like you have different standards for Assad than you do for the Saudis?
GABBARD: I think you're misquoting my position and my statements on this.
My position on Syria, as well as countries like Iraq and Libya, has been that it is not in our interest in the United States to continue to wage destructive and costly regime change wars that are not only costly for us, the American people, but that in each of these instances has made the lives of the people in those countries far worse off.
And we can go into detailed examples within these three countries where we have and continue to wage these regime change wars. That's one situation that I continue to push strongly for us to end this destructive United States policy.
And Yemen is a different situation, where we're actively working in concert with Saudi Arabia in waging a genocidal war against the civilians of Yemen.
TAPPER: Yes. No, I...
GABBARD: This must end now.
TAPPER: Yes, I didn't mean -- I meant more like the idea that we need
to work with -- I'm not talking with Yemen right.
I mean, the idea that we need to end the relationship with the Saudis, but it's OK to have a relationship with Assad just to end that war, just the realpolitik of that.
(CROSSTALK)
GABBARD: No, no, I will just interject here, Jake, because that's not at all I'm saying.
TAPPER: OK. Please explain.
GABBARD: My position has been, we need to be willing to have the conversation with people who may be adversaries or dictators, people like Kim Jong-un in North Korea, if we are serious about the pursuit of peace, if we're serious about trying to alleviate the suffering of people in those countries.
This is a very -- that's a very different statement than saying we need to end our alliance with Saudi Arabia. I'm not saying we don't have a conversation with them.
TAPPER: Got it.
GABBARD: I'm saying we need to stop using our U.S. military to do what Saudi Arabia wants. We need to end this alliance that actually has been counter to serving the interests of the American people and our national security.
TAPPER: I get the distinction. I just wanted to understand it better, and I appreciate your time doing that.
GABBARD: Sure.
TAPPER: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, thank you so much for your time.
GABBARD: Thanks, Jake.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source