CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview with Congressmen Seth Moulton & Adam Kinzinger

Interview

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[20:30:14]

BLITZER: Bipartisan, anger, fear, and serious questions this Saturday night over the Trump administration's plan to withdraw thousands of American troops immediately from Afghanistan and Iraq. And to do so, five days could have that withdrawal complete five days before Joe Biden takes office on January 20th.

Joining us now two members of Congress who served this country in war, democratic congressman, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts. He spent four tours in Iraq as a U.S. Marine. And Republican congressman, Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois. He flew U.S. Air Force missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. We thank both of you, members of Congress, for your service in uniform. Thank you for joining us tonight. And thank you for your bipartisan cooperation.

Let's discuss what's going on. Congressman Moulton, about 2,500 U.S. troops would be coming home from each country. Both of you sent a very strong letter this week to the Secretary of State, Pompeo, the acting defense secretary, Christopher Miller, and it says in part, I'll read a line or two, "We write to express our grave concern, any premature drawdown without thoughtful consideration of the real-world conditions on the ground would be ill-advised." So, Congressman Moulton, what are the risks?

REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Well, the risks are huge. Well, I mean, let's not forget, we went to Afghanistan in the first place to prevent terrorism, that's still a threat. We are completely undermining the work of our diplomats to try to bring peace to the region. We have Pakistan right over the border with a civil war, ramping with terrorists and nuclear weapons, which is a recipe for disaster. And we're just giving up everything with nothing in return.

So, what Trump is saying he will do here completely undermines our troops, completely undermines everything they fought for, completely undermines our diplomats. And what is he getting? Absolutely nothing.

BLITZER: Congressman Kinzinger, what do you think?

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): Yes. So, I agree with everything Seth said. And beyond that, look, 2,500 troops is really just enough troops to basically protect themselves. So, it's hard for me to see what kind of force they can project at 2,500.

But I think what's as nonsensical as anything is why and why now, you know, if -- the best thing that the President could do, the polite thing, the right thing, is to allow President-elect Biden to make the decision on the future of U.S. role in Afghanistan, and not to put them in a position where he is either going to have to increase troops when he comes into office, which will be a whole story in itself, or pull them all out, and then basically bear the blame for what follows. We saw this play in Iraq happened in 2011, and it's frightening.

BLITZER: So, Congressman Moulton, so what's your immediate fear? Let's talk about Iraq and Afghanistan. What's your fear, specifically, in Afghanistan, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, they're still obviously very strong. They're in Iraq. There's all sorts of potential problems there. What's your immediate fear?

MOULTON: Well, in some ways, the best way to put this, Wolf, is that there's nothing worse that we can do than to bring the troops home, give up everything they fought for, and then have to turn around and send them back. And as Adam said, that's exactly what happened in Iraq, we cannot repeat that mistake.

Adam and I have both fought overseas, OK? There's no one who understands how important it is to bring the troops home more than we do, but we've got to bring them home for good. And that means pulling out with a plan. If there's one thing we've learned in the last 20 years of these forever wars, is that it's much harder to get out of wars than to get in them. The President has no plan. There's nothing in exchange for this withdrawal. And as Adam said, himself, it's setting up the conditions for Biden to just have to turn around and put more Americans back into harm's way.

BLITZER: It seems to me, Congressman Kinzinger, that there's plenty of criticism of this decision by the president, from your fellow Republicans, not just some Democrats, maybe even more so from Republicans who are deeply worried about the President's decision.

He promised when he took office, and in years ago, he used to give me interviews, and he would tell me all the time, why are we in Iraq? Why are we in Afghanistan? We got to get out of there. And if I was elected, I would immediately withdraw those troops. Seems to be what he's trying to do is live up to a commitment that he made to simply get the troops out of there.

KINZINGER: Yes, you could see it that way. But I also look at when he ran in 2016, his biggest commitment was to defeat ISIS and this pullout is going to do a couple things. It's obviously going to give room for ISIS to plan and grow. We saw that in 2011. Afghanistan, obviously, has a natural tendency to want to do that when it's lawless.

So, it gives him -- it gives him that. So, all of this when you look at what's happening, I just say, why are you making this decision now? What's the point of it? And quite honestly, what is this going to do to ISIS' recruiting efforts when they can turn around to anybody they're looking to recruit and say, look, we made the U.S. run again. I just think Rand Paul, you know, in his foreign policy, that kind of a Trump whisperer on this has gotten through to a point where we're in a bad position.

[20:35:17]

BLITZER: How significant is the fact, Congressman Moulton, that you a Democrat, Congressman, Kinzinger, Republican, are working together? It's one example, and God knows, we could use plenty more examples of bipartisan cooperation on a really critical issue.

MOULTON: You know, sadly, it is unusual today, Wolf. But I think one thing you see in Congress is a lot of times veterans will come together, when it comes to issues of our national security, when it comes to doing the right thing to protect our country, and to live up to the promise that we have made to do everything we can to support our troops.

The sadly, the president doesn't get that at all. Let's not forget, this is a draft dodging president who's giving gifts to Putin in Russia. He's giving gifts to China. He's giving gifts to North Korea. He's giving gifts to Iran, which is much closer to a nuclear weapon and they were under President Obama. They're, of course, right over the border from Afghanistan. And now he's giving a gift to the Taliban who have blood up to their elbows, that's American blood.

So, look, this is right out of Trump's playbook, as Adam said, and it's terrible policy. I think it's important to talk about what we should be doing. We should be keeping a minimal counterterror force in Afghanistan, not a force that's just big enough to protect itself. We should be withdrawing additional troops when we get something in return from the Taliban. We've got nothing. That's the way forward here. It's the exact opposite of what Trump is doing.

BLITZER: Congressman Moulton, Congressman Kinzinger. to both of you, once again, thanks for your service. We are grateful to both of you. Thanks for your cooperation right now as well. We'll continue this conversation down the road. Appreciate it very, very much.

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