CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With California Congressman John Garamendi

Interview

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ACOSTA: And we certainly know that. He's been an acting defense secretary, acting attorney general, acting chief of staff and so on.

All right, guys, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Joining me now, Congressman John Garamendi, a Democrat who serves on the Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.

And, as you saw today, the president visiting those troops in Iraq, I suppose better late than never. He said: "We have knocked out ISIS. They have been knocked out. They have been knocked out silly."

What did you make of the president's comments, when you saw him make those comments today? He also said that the U.S. could use Iraq as a base to launch attacks against Syria. The suggestion, I suppose, would be, ISIS may not exactly be knocked silly in that country.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), CALIFORNIA: Well, I think you're exactly correct. Just last week, before the president decided he would pull out, the

military was saying there's some 20,000 to 30,000 active ISIS soldiers or militants operating in Syria.

Now, if that's the president's notion of being knocked out, well, I don't think he's been in a real battle. This battle against ISIS is going to continue for some time. Moving out of Syria totally, which is apparently what he wants to do, will leave a very, very serious vacuum that will be filled by Iran, by Assad, Syria, and by Russia, as well as Turkey, all of which is bad news for the United States.

With regard to operating from Iraq, yes, we have been doing that regularly from the airfields in Iraq, targeting various ISIS formations in Syria. We know of those formations because of our 2,000 troops that are on the ground that are able to identify targets, able to coordinate the air and ground activities. That will not be available.

And then there is the issue of, what will Turkey do with the Kurds? All of this is chaotic, and the president's arrival in Iraq is just one more bit of chaos and all of the things that go with it.

We really need to calm down here. Let's get a strategy in place. Let's understand what it is we're trying to accomplish, and then put in place plans to get it done, rather than helter-skelter.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, a senior administration official has told CNN that the national security decision-making process has basically stopped working.

And this is happening as the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, his departure date has been moved up to January 1, and the president has said today that he may just have this acting secretary serve in that role for who knows how long.

Are you hopeful that the president will approach some of these decisions, this decision-making process, which is so vital to the security of the world, differently now that he's visited a war zone?

[18:15:05]

GARAMENDI: Well, this is precisely the big, major problem confronting, frankly, the entire world.

The United States is the strongest, most influential and most lethal country in the world. We need to use our military with extraordinary wisdom. We need to use our diplomacy and our international relations, similarly, with wisdom, with long-term thought and plans and strategies, none of which this president seems to have.

He seems to have just ignored all of his advisers. He has no use for the intelligence organizations, consistently trashing them, trashing the FBI, going after -- and I don't know if he's paying any attention to the State Department right now, but he certainly didn't pay any attention to Mr. Bolton, as well as to the military.

All of this means this entire thing is coming out of his mind. Now, there is a scary thought.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, let me turn to the shutdown. When asked about the government shutdown today, the president said he's willing to do whatever it takes to get a wall.

Let's listen to the president speaking earlier today in Iraq.

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ACOSTA: Your response to that?

GARAMENDI: It is a little more complex than that.

Yes, the Democrats and the Republicans agreed to a major, some $40 billion border security plan back in 2013. That passed the Senate. It had all of the elements necessary. It had DACA, it had immigration reform, it had border security, it had drones, it had walls, it had improved ports of entry. All of that was in it.

Unfortunately, Speaker Boehner and the Republicans in the House refused to even take that issue up. Since that time, the Democrats have repeatedly said that we will support border security. We will support all of these elements, including fences where useful.

Now, the president has yet to describe any plans whatsoever as to where he's going to build a wall or the fences or the spiked steel rails. None of that has been given. We would not allow the military -- and I'm on the Armed Services Committee, responsible for this -- to even build a garage for their tanks unless they told us where, when, why it was needed and how much it would cost. Then we would appropriate the money.

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ACOSTA: So when the president says that he will have the military build the wall for him down on the border, your response to that, then, is what?

GARAMENDI: Won't happen. It won't happen.

The military has no authority, no authorization, no money to build a wall, and they won't get it. We're not going to use the U.S. military to build a wall for this president. We need the military to be, frankly, in Syria. We need the military

to be able to carry out its tasks around the world and all of the various functions that it has to keep this nation and, frankly, the world in a peaceful situation.

ACOSTA: OK. Congressman John Garamendi, thank you very much for coming on. We appreciate it. Happy holidays.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

ACOSTA: And it was good to see you. Thank you, sir.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

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