CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Congressman Adam Smith

Interview

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BLITZER: It certainly does. All right. Jessica Dean in Wilmington for us. Thank you.

Joining us now, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington state. He chairs the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Chairman, thanks so much for joining us. As you know, the Biden team is reaching out to former Pentagon officials who served under former Defense Secretary Mattis to get at least some sense of the information they need before taking over on January 20th. What does it say to you that the president-elect's people have to do this sort of end run since he is being blocked from getting the traditional, the customary Presidential Daily Intelligence briefings?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): Well, first of all, it is good that President- elect Biden has these connections. He has worked with Jim Mattis when Jim Mattis was the CENTCOM commander in a variety of different roles within the Pentagon, and so to have that relationship is a huge positive. And I think the president-elect is doing everything he can to be ready.

But, look, I mean, what President Trump is doing here is one of the worst things any president has ever done. I mean he is jeopardizing the health, the safety of our country, basically in the service of his massive ego. I mean if he wants to contest the election, he can do that through courts where he is losing. There is nothing to contest here. He clearly lost. But even if he thinks by some twisted, you know, thought process that he might still win, he should be preparing Joe Biden to become president. There's no excuse for what President Trump is doing.

BLITZER: What about the military and intelligence communities right now, Mr. Chairman, that have to deal with all of these issues including the firing, all of a sudden the firing of Defense Secretary Esper, the possibility that the FBI director Christopher Wray could be ousted, the head of the CIA, Gina Haspel, being on thin ice? All of the reports suggesting right now all of this as the president continues to refuse to concede. How serious of a threat potentially is this to national security?

SMITH: Well, it's very serious potentially. I mean all of those jobs you mentioned, secretary of Defense, CIA -- sorry, CIA director, FBI director, they're very important jobs. And as we sit here -- and I know, you know, serving on the committee I serve on, I served on the Intel Committee, you know, I have been briefed regularly on the threat stream, on the issues that we're facing and the challenges that we have.

All of those people you just mentioned, they're working on those things with their staffs and they have a knowledge base of what's happening there that is incredibly important. So with Secretary Esper gone, the, you know, acting secretary, he wasn't part of those conversations. He's got to be brought up to speed. The other three top people in the Pentagon who were fired in the last couple of weeks, same thing.

So it is a huge risk that ongoing operations can be jeopardized. Where the Pentagon is concerned, we have troops deployed all over the world, certainly most notably in Afghanistan but the Middle East as well. You know, those operations benefit from consistency and knowledgeable leadership. You make these times of changes, that makes it more difficult and it creates risk.

BLITZER: Is there anything your committee, the Armed Services Committee, can do about the information blockade, especially when it comes to military intelligence which the incoming National Security team, including the president-elect and the vice president-elect, they need? And they have security clearances. He was vice president of the United States for eight years and Kamala Harris is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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SMITH: Yes, there's not a lot we can do. What we can do is shine a light on the problem and try to put pressure on the Republicans to move in a different direction. Now I know it was reported that Senator Lankford from Oklahoma, a Republican, is very concerned about this and is going to try to put pressure on the Trump administration and then move forward legislatively to try to require this.

Look, if we got cooperation from Republican members of Congress and the Senate, there's quite a bit we could do. But absent that cooperation, the best we can do is call the president out, alert people to the danger, and try to force changes by the president. Look, this is -- I mean this is a terrible set of decisions that President Trump is making. This is placing Americans at risk. And we've talked about the national security implications.

I've also heard earlier in your program you mentioned the public health implications. I mean coronavirus is running rampant across the country. There are important things the federal government needs to do, important things that President-elect Biden needs to be included in. You know, we should put the interests of the American people first, not the individual political interests of Donald Trump.

BLITZER: Congressman Adam Smith, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, thanks so much for joining us.

SMITH: Thanks, Wolf. Always a pleasure.

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