MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Trump: "2020 hopefuls prepare for first Dem debate."

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MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. That was President Trump this afternoon hours after he threatened Iran with obliteration should there be any attacks on anything American in the region. In a series of tweets, the president wrote: "Iran leadership doesn`t understand the words nice or compassion. They never have. Sadly, the thing they do understand is strength and power. Iran`s very ignorant and insulting statement put out today only shows what they -- that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration." We Americans know, unfortunately, what obliteration looks like. Here are just some of the cities in the Middle East whose people have faced obliteration firsthand. Look at that. The president was referring to a statement from Iranian President Rouhani, who slammed Trump`s latest sanctions on Iran as outrageous and idiotic and that the White House is -- quote -- "afflicted by mental illness." For more, I`m joined by independent Senator Angus King of Maine, a member of the Senate Intelligence and the Armed Services committees. Senator, why are we talking like Curtis LeMay all of a sudden with this crazy, apocalyptic language?

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): Well, it certainly doesn`t lead us towards some kind of diplomatic solution. That`s for sure. And then, when you add to that the fact that we lead to the likelihood of a miscalculation on one side of the other, a mistake, something which one side thinks is defensive, the other side says is provocative, and the next thing you know, we`re on the escalation ladder, with no telling where it ends.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the president saying the other day, which I applauded in my own way, his statement that we didn`t want to lose -- cause casualties needlessly in this tit for tat? When he heard it would be 150 people who would be killed by any kind of surgical strike or whatever against military installations, he said, that`s too many. And then, today, he said, obliterate. I mean, his concern about killing 150 people in an air raid, and now is saying, I want to obliterate whole populations.

KING: Well, it is very hard to read. And the messages are very -- as you say, in this case, very inconsistent. I think he wants -- he`s -- the whole strategy, as I understand it -- and we had a briefing from some of his people the other day -- is called maximum pressure. And I suppose what you saw today was the rhetorical part of the maximum pressure, talking about obliteration and an overwhelming force. But, again, how do we get off the path? My question is, what`s the endgame? Mike Pompeo listed 12 steps that the Iranians had to accept. And, basically, they asked the Iranians to change who they are. It`s unlikely to get a negotiated settlement when you start with a kind of maximalist position. So, I don`t know how we get around this. Again, the president has also said the door is open for negotiation. John Bolton said all they have to do is walk through the door. But they just sanctioned the guy who they want to walk through the door, if they`re sincere about some kind of negotiations. Chris, we`re seeing all kinds of messages go back and forth. And, as I said before, what really worries me is a mistake, a miscalculation, "The Guns of August," and people wondering two years later..

MATTHEWS: I agree with that, Barbara Tuchman.

KING: Yes, Barbara Tuchman. How did we get into this horrible war? And we`re exactly in that kind of situation now.

MATTHEWS: Question to you. What should the United States do, assuming we had a different president? What should the United States do to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons?

KING: Well, I would have -- my strategy would have been to start with the JCPOA, which was working. They were abiding by it. It had weaknesses, for sure. Everybody agrees with that, and particularly the deadlines that were coming up -- and say, OK, let`s sit down at the table and talk about JCPOA number two.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

KING: And what do we have to do to get there? But now we`re in a situation where we`re asking not only for an end to nuclear efforts, which is good, but no missiles, no malign activity. And I should say, Chris, Iran is no Boy Scout here. They are a very malign force in the Middle East. They -- they`re running Hezbollah. They have got proxies in Iraq. They have killed Americans over the years. They`re not good guys. They need to be confronted. The question is, how do you confront them most effectively to get to where you want, which is to get them to stop those malign activities, without getting to the place where war looks more likely than not?

MATTHEWS: Yes-or-no question -- I think it is -- should he be required to get congressional approval to commit an act of war against Iran?

KING: Yes.

MATTHEWS: OK, I like that.

KING: Now, the qualification there is, self-defense is always available to the president. But the Constitution couldn`t be more clear that -- the framers -- you go back to August of 1787, Madison`s notes where they were debating how the war powers should be handled. And there were some that said the president should declare war and execute it. Others said, no, that`s -- that`s the whole reason we had this little matter of a revolution, was, we don`t want the king or the executive to be -- unilaterally take people into war.

MATTHEWS: Right.

KING: They split it. They said, Congress declares war. The president`s the commander in chief. Now, Congress has abdicated that role largely in the last 50 years or 70 years. But I think it`s time for Congress to reassert itself, take the responsibility for making that decision, bearing in mind -- and the amendment that hopefully will come up this week says the president, of course, always has the option under Article 2 to defend the country, to respond to attacks against the country.

But the larger question is, the American people should be behind this when we go to war. And that means Congress.

MATTHEWS: Thank you so much, sir, Angus King Maine.

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