MSNBC The Situation with Tucker Carlson - Transcript

MSNBC The Situation with Tucker Carlson - Transcript

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: You know THE SITUATION, Joe, thanks.
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It's the breaking news tonight, the coverage of the port controversy.

We're going to continue with it.

Earlier today President Bush once again defended his administration's decision to allow a Dubai-based company to manage six major American ports. The president says Americans don't need to worry about security, that ports will still be overseen by U.S. customs and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Just moments ago Dubai Ports World, the company in question, offered to delay part of the deal. Earlier Bush's top advisor, Karl Rove, announced that the president was willing to delay the deal in order to allow lawmakers time to review it.

Will all of this be enough to satisfy the president's critics? Let's ask one. Congressman Jerry Nadler is a Democrat from the state of New York. He joins us live tonight.

Congressman Nadler, thanks for coming on.

Is it—Congressman Nadler?

Well, as we wait for Congressman Nadler's audio to come on, the deal has been delayed, as we reported a moment ago, apparently within the last hour or so. At least as it's been reported.

The company, owned by the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Ports, has decided only to move on parts of the deal that apply to the rest of the world. The six ports in question up and down the eastern seaboard, including New Orleans, will be put on hold.

The deal, of course, does not include security for those ports, as the president reminded the country today, only the operation of the ports. But that is not—still with the president's critics. They're still feeling ferocious. Among them, as we said a moment ago, Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York, who I think is able to hear now.

Congressman Nadler, are you there?

REP. JERRY NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Yes, I am.

CARLSON: Thanks for joining us. What do you make of this news, that the company itself, the Dubai-based company, will delay the deal?

NADLER: Well, I think it's a little common sense. I mean, I think they could see that the American people and Congress were determined that this deal was not going to go through without a hard, hard look at it, so they might as well be nice and say, "OK, delay it and take a hard look." Because Congress is not going to sit still and have this ram through quickly without Congress having a chance to really look at it, which is exactly what it ought to do.

CARLSON: I agree with you. And I don't think there's any defending the White House's handling of this on a political level. But on a more substantive level, aren't you troubled by the effect this has on America's image abroad?

It's Democrats who are always reminding us that we're hated in the rest of the world, that the Arab world hates us, that we alienate the Islamic world for no good reason.

NADLER: I think...

CARLSON: Is this another example of us alienating people who might be our allies?

NADLER: Well, this could have some unfortunate affect. No question. But the fact is that you cannot expect a deal of this nature with a country that was, you know, the home of some of the people that took part in 9/11, a country that still is stonewalling the Treasury Department in looking into the finances of al Qaeda. You're not going to—you can't expect us to go through, questions unanswered.

Having said that, I want to say two things. One, we ought to take—

I wouldn't rule this out. But we have to take a cold, very hard, careful look at all the implications of this, No. 1.

And No. 2, I hope that we will use this to look at the far more important question, far more important, of the fact that whoever is running the port, only five percent of the containers that come into our ports every year, nine million containers, are inspected.

CARLSON: Right.

NADLER: The other 95 percent could have atom bombs in them, for all we know.

CARLSON: I think—I think there is some agreement on that. But getting back...

NADLER: Well, there isn't agreement on that.

CARLSON: Getting back to the story that's breaking right now, don't you regret the demagoguery that's been going on in Congress and on television, for that matter, over this story? I mean, there has been—let's be honest—some hysteria about this, that the—the emirates are not going to be controlling and never were going to be controlling the security at the ports. And yet, you'd never know that from listening to members of Congress.

NADLER: Well, that is true, but I think it's inevitable when something like this comes out and the details of that come out only more slowly that people are going to react in a very quick fashion.

And the fact is, we don't know exactly what they're going to be controlling and what not. We don't know how much danger there is from some possibly terrorist employee who slips through their security, whatever that may be, getting knowledge he shouldn't have. And that's the kind of question we have to look at very carefully.

And that's why the responsible thing is the Clinton—not the Clinton, the Schumer-King Bill, which is essentially, stop, look and listen, which I gather is going to happen now, despite the White House's attempt to bully this through quickly.

CARLSON: Right. But you know, look, the president has a point. I resented it when the president got up the other day and said, you know, you weren't mad when England owned the country; you're just mad now that a Muslim country owns the company. I thought that was kind of a low blow.

NADLER: It was a low blow.

CARLSON: But on the other hand, he's absolutely right, and you know it. I heard you say on television the other day you'd be totally fine if this country—this company were owned by Israel, but you're bothered that it's owned by the UAE. This is...

NADLER: That's exactly right. Because...

CARLSON: OK. Look, I agree with you. But let's be honest here.

We're afraid of Islam. That's the problem.

NADLER: No, we're not afraid of Islam. But we know that within the Islamic world there are people, a fair number of people, who are out to harm us. We're not afraid of Islam. But we know that within that world there are people who are out to harm us, who are terrorists, and, therefore, we have to be very careful.

CARLSON: I wonder, though, if there isn't—and of course, I absolutely agree with you. I just wish people would be a little more forthright about their motivations.

Back to the UAE for one quick second. In early 2000 the Clinton administration sold $8 billion worth of weapons systems, including F-16s and missiles to the UAE. This was after we knew perfectly well that members of the ruling family of those emirates were involved with al Qaeda. And the Clinton administration sold this—this weapons material to the emirates. Nobody said boo. Where were you when that happened?

NADLER: I don't remember it happening, but I have been very critical of sale of any advanced weapons to any of the Arab countries, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, if for no—and the same reasoning would apply here. If for no other reason than it's only one coup d'etat away from having it in the hands of someone like al Qaeda.

CARLSON: That's actually a pretty good point. And I hope the next time a Democratic administration sells $8 billion of weapons systems to a bunch of people who are, as you said, one coup away from al Qaeda, you'll pipe up.

NADLER: Well, I pipe—I don't remember that specific instance, but I've been saying for years that we should—we should convert most of our military aid to Egypt, for example, into economic aid.

CARLSON: Yes.

NADLER: Because what do they need advanced weaponry for, period?

But I want to get back, because now that we're looking at the whole ports question, the bigger question—and it's not true that everybody agrees to it. We ought to be spending $4.5 to 5 billion a year to insist that no container gets put on a ship in a foreign port bound for the United States until that container is inspected in the foreign port by an American inspection team and certified and sealed.

CARLSON: Yes. I guess when I said nobody disagrees I meant I don't disagree at all.

NADLER: I'm glad you don't.

CARLSON: I don't. All right.

NADLER: But the fact is we are—we've been saying this, some of us, for years, and the fact is this country is at mortal risk. Because any one of those containers could have God knows what in it.

CARLSON: Yes. Well, I guess we should alert someone in Congress.

Wait, you're in Congress. Yes, you ought to sponsor a bill.

NADLER: Well, I have sponsored a bill.

CARLSON: Good.

NADLER: And in fact, we had a colloquy on the floor a couple years ago, and I offered an amendment. And the Republican chairman of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee, Hal Rogers, said at that time, "We don't need this. We'll inspect all the high-risk containers."

And I said, "Wonderful. They'll put the bomb in the low-risk containers."

CARLSON: Yes.

NADLER: We're not taking this seriously enough. Not the Bush administration and not Congress.

CARLSON: OK, well I hope that changes. Jerry Nadler, thanks a lot.

NADLER: You're quite welcome.

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