MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Joy Reid's new book on Trump."

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

HAYES: Well, no, he does. It`s literally in the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, the Congress shall have power to declare war. Now, some members of Congress are pushing back unveiling an amendment to key defense legislation today that will specifically prevent federal funds from being used for military strike against Iran without congressional approval. Joining me now is one of the lawmakers supporting that amendment, Congressman Maxine Waters of California. Congresswoman, explain to me how this amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would work.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): Well, it`s very simple and it works this way. After September 11th attack on our country and what happened in New York, the authorization for the use of military, that is AUMF came into being. And it was designed basically for what was going on at that time, giving the president the authorization to do what needed to be done in order to you know not only deal with the attack as it was taken. But now this president wants to use that authorization in order to go into Iraq -- Iran, I`m sorry with the possible war without coming before the Congress of the United States. He wants to say that that authorization gives him the right and the power to do that. We absolutely disagree with that and we are pushing back on it. We have already organized that we`re going to have a caucus no war with Iran caucus. And some of us who created the push back on the Iraq war out of Iraq are going to be engaged in this making sure that we do everything that we can to get the true facts out, to push back on this president, to disseminate information, to do speaking engagements, to rally, to do everything that we can to prevent us from going into war with Iran.

HAYES: OK, but all of that, speaking engagements, getting the facts out, whatever, like you know, you`re a member of Congress, you -- the Democrats control the House, like you can -- you can pass if leadership is behind it right? I mean, you can attach some riders to the Defense Authorization Act which is needed as part of the appropriations process for the entire military, right, that says, you cannot strike Iran.

WATERS: That`s right, absolutely.

HAYES: Like that -- is that the plan to pass that rider or do you have buy-in for that?

WATERS: Well, as you know, Barbara Lee has already attached to the biggest appropriations bill that in fact, that the authorization does not apply to Iran. In addition to that, we have some legislators with legislation to make sure that that is clarified and he cannot use it to go into war without coming before Congress. So a lot is going on to try and make sure that we don`t allow this president making unilateral decisions to go into war and to strike Iran. And we just think that any little incident could cause us to go in. We think that he is not having the advice of advisers who would make sure that he does not bumble and stumble into war because he doesn`t have anybody around him. He doesn`t have a defense secretary. He doesn`t have people -- Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo, certainly their war hawks and we`re really worried about the advice that they`re giving him.

HAYES: Final question just to make sure I understand the later end. Is House leadership, the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House leadership committed to putting a rider in legislation, must pass legislation before the floor that would explicitly bar the President from using authorization to attack Iran?

WATERS: Yes, absolutely. Nancy Pelosi is committed to that.

HAYES: OK. So that`s going to happen. OK, good. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, I want to clarity on that, thank you very much.

WATERS: Well, you`re so welcome and thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source