MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MSNBC Hardball-Transcript

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

Will Congress do something binding on Iraq? What will they do about the Taliban's apparent resurgence in Afghanistan and in Pakistan?

U.S. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a Florida Democrat and member of the Appropriations Committee. Congressman Chris Shays is a Connecticut Republican and a member of the Homeland Security Committee.

Congressman Shays, you first.

Let's talk about a bipartisan area, which is Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke was just on. He said that is an area your both parties can agree on.

Are we working together? Is the United States operating in a way that is going to keep Karzai in power and the Taliban out of power?

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS ®, CONNECTICUT: Well, I hope so.

And I do think we are working together with both Republicans and Democrats. The key in Afghanistan is, we have gotten the Europeans to do some lifting there, where they don't want to do it in Iraq. So, we have, I think, more of the world community with us. But...

MATTHEWS: But I hear the Dutch haven't fought a war since '45. Some of these armies over there have not been in the field since World War II.

SHAYS: Well, but...

MATTHEWS: And we wonder-people wonder whether they have the fighting ability.

SHAYS: Well, I'm not sure they do.

But give this administration credit for at least finding a way to engage the Europeans in something. As someone told me, Europe has never had what they call an away game since Afghanistan.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

SHAYS: They have always depended on the United States.

MATTHEWS: Well, that's a question. Do you trust the blue helmets?

Do you trust-do you trust Europe to fight our fights with us?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D), FLORIDA: I wish I shared my colleague's enthusiasm for the bipartisan cooperation. But, you know, the president has asked for-and we only have about 20 percent of the total funds committed to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to what should be and should have remained the central front.

MATTHEWS: You mean it's getting the short end of the stick?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Oh, completely. And that is why there has been a resurgence of the Taliban. I mean, that's why we had a situation with the vice president last night.

We have moved the focus from the place it should have been, where we really knew that al Qaeda was, to Iraq, where...

MATTHEWS: OK. Look, we have got a spring offensive coming up.

We just-Congressman-Congressman Shays, 10,000 troops from the Taliban forces, they're al Qaeda, basically, For all practical purposes, they are al Qaeda. They are our enemy.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: Right.

MATTHEWS: They're the people we knocked out back when the president promised, from 9/14 on, he was going to go get them for doing what they did to us in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: Well...

MATTHEWS: Are we going to keep-continue on that front, to be prosecuting that war against them, or have we let it-let them go too far?

SHAYS: Well, I think we should have been able to capture a number of the Taliban. And we made some mistakes there.

But-but Debbie and I do disagree significantly. I think you could have hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan, and we would end up like the Russians. It's not the kind of territory where you have roads. You have to fly your troops by helicopter. You have to march your troops in single file along passes. So...

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: All the more reason why we shouldn't have taken the focus off Afghanistan.

SHAYS: No. No.

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... pulling our troops...

MATTHEWS: No, but he says you're arguing it's number of troops.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Is it?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It's focus. It's commitment. It's dedication.

It's funding. It's strategy.

Instead, we shifted the central focus from Afghanistan to Iraq and created...

SHAYS: Those are all words, Debbie. They're all words.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: They're not words. That is reality.

The reality on the ground there is that there is a resurgence of the Taliban. And-and now, instead of having the ability to...

MATTHEWS: OK.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... continue to press on and find-find the-the-the people who actually perpetrated 9/11...

MATTHEWS: OK.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: ... our focus is in Iraq.

MATTHEWS: Let me try to use this partisanship, and-which is appropriate in America, to argue between the two parties.

Let me ask you this, Congressman Shays, about this partisan use the president is putting partisanship to. He is warning, through Dick Cheney over there the other day, he warning the Musharraf government, if they don't get tough enough with the Taliban, who are obviously holed up over there in Pakistan, behind the border, that the Democrats in Congress are going to cut them off. In other words, the president is playing good cop to the Democrats' bad cop.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Is it going to work? Is it smart politics?

SHAYS: Well, I mean, we do have to put pressure on Pakistan, because that is where the haven is.

It is not in Afghanistan. And, you know, I guess Debbie and I disagree on the fact I do think we have more agreement in Afghanistan than we do in Iraq. And, my God, if we are losing agreement on Afghanistan, then we will really have problems.

But we had-the Democrats had an opportunity to be bipartisan. They could have brought forward a resolution supporting the Iraqi Study Group recommendations, three recommendations, the third saying there should be a real effort to have us engage the entire community, including Iran and Syria.

And they would have had support for that.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: We-we brought forward a resolution that opposes, like the vast majority of this country...

MATTHEWS: I hear today that we are beginning to call the-their neighbors into this discussion.

SHAYS: Well, and we should be. And-and-but the point I am just trying to make is, why aren't we using the Iraq Study Group that Democrats and Republicans both support?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Ask the president.

SHAYS: Debbie, you're interrupting me.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Chris-Chris...

SHAYS: Debbie, you're interrupting me.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Ask the president why we're are not asking the Iraq Study Group, Chris.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: No, but what I'm asking the Democrats in Congress is, why not bring a resolution that Republicans and Democrats can both agree on? We can support that.

And there are three recommendations: transfer the Iraqis to do the work that we are doing on the streets, have the Sunnis and Shias sit down, with consequence, and, finally, engage Iran and Syria. I could support a resolution like that. And so could a lot of other Republicans.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: What we need to make sure we do, Chris, is, we need to make sure that we have the armor and the protection and the funding and the training for our troops that we are sending over there.

We should not be escalating this war. We should be making sure that we develop a plan and we press the president to develop a plan to eventually bring our troops home, and make sure that the Iraqis can stand up on their own and move forward with the democracy that we helped them create.

SHAYS: Can I ask you a question?

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That is on the president. It is his responsibility.

And Congress is finally, under Democratic leadership, pressing the president, and putting the accountability where it belongs, where you and your colleagues asked no questions and gave him a blank check for the last six years, which was absolutely inexcusable.

SHAYS: Well, you know, it's strong, fierce words.

But I have been direct 15 times. I have had...

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: This is a strong, fierce situation, Chris.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: I have had...

(CROSSTALK)

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: And the American people, on November 7, insisted and voted to make sure that we could address what is going on in Iraq. They are deeply, deeply concerned.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you-let me ask you both...

(CROSSTALK)

SHAYS: You got a great indication of how bipartisanship we will be able to be. I'm trying to give a suggestion of a way to be bipartisan.

MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you about a problem. This country has got some problems. I sometimes worry about our country.

SHAYS: Right.

MATTHEWS: And, right now, I am worried about a few fronts.

I'm worried about losing the war against the Taliban, because Karzai may be a real Viktor Lazlo good guy, but he apparently only is mayor of Kabul.

SHAYS: Well, that's true.

MATTHEWS: And I worry about that.

SHAYS: Yes.

MATTHEWS: I worry about the fact the countryside over there is being dominated by the opium dealers, because money talks, here or there.

SHAYS: Right.

MATTHEWS: And, as long as there is a market for the drugs, as we know there is in the world, including here, people make a lot more money on that than they do on corn...

SHAYS: Right.

MATTHEWS: ... when they're growing corn.

Let me ask you about the market today...

SHAYS: Sure.

MATTHEWS: ... Congressman Shays. You are up in Connecticut. You are near the Wall Street situation.

Is it the Chinese market drop of 9 percent that led to our drop of about 4 percent today? Is it a cross-is it just a correction in the price of stocks?

My guy, Dan Saunders (ph), I talked to him today at Wachovia. I said, "What is going on?" Like everybody else in this business. He said, it's a correction. He said, it's...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: You know, we thought one was coming.

And the other concern is maybe that, you know, the former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, just by saying that word-I think in the old days, they used the word banana, rather than the word recession, so they wouldn't say the word. He said it.

SHAYS: Well...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: And, now that he said it, it's out of the bag.

Is this going to bring more trouble in the next couple days?

SHAYS: I got elected in '87. In October, we had a drop of 20 points.

That was disastrous.

This is three-and-a-half points. You have what in China I think is quite significant. You have a market that was-was, many people think, well-it was well extended beyond what it should be.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

SHAYS: So, time will tell, Chris. We will know tomorrow and the next day what it means.

MATTHEWS: Well, I'm hoping, as everybody who is in the market hopes, that the Chinese have a command over their economy. And this is one time I want them to be what they are, which is dictators, and dictated only it should be 9 percent, because if gets any worse, we will get a lot worse.

Anyway, thank you very much, U.S. Congressman Chris Shays...

SHAYS: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: ... and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from down in Florida, where we all would like to be.

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