MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. Well, the tea party crowd has

called President Obama a socialist, a communist and a Nazi. And now

Democratic congressman Steve Cohen of Tennessee compared the tea party

movement itself to the KKK in a radio interview. Let's listen to it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

REP. STEVE COHEN (D), TENNESSEE: The tea party people are kind of,

like--without robes and hoods, they have really shown a very hard-core,

angry side of America that is against any type of diversity. And we saw

opposition to African-Americans, hostility toward gays, hostility to

anybody who wasn't just, you know, a clone of George Wallace's fan club.

And I'm afraid they've taken over the Republican Party.

I think these--it's cultural, and these people are ready to be led

by the nose and they're being led, and it's just to be against Barack

Obama.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, we have Congressman Cohen joining us right now from

Memphis. Sir, thank you for joining us. Give me your insights right up

front here because I'm a student of it, as well, of the tea party crowd.

Who are these people? How much of it is racial? How much of it is

ideological? How much of it is rooted in organizations like, well, the No-

Nothings, the KKK, et cetera?

COHEN: I think there's a lot of it, Chris. You know, on the health

care vote, I walked on the Mall among the protesters for at least a half

and hour. I took my congressional badge off, had shades on and walked

around. It was a very homogeneous group. It was almost 99 percent white.

I saw a minimal number of African-Americans, Asians, native Americans. It

was just--they were so alike.

And after the hatred that I saw exposed, calling Congressman John

Lewis, one of my heroes, and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, another friend,

the "N" word--and spitting on Emanuel Cleaver just disgusted me. And

then the names they used for Barney Frank. And it showed a disregard.

Now, not all tea party people, obviously, think that way, but when the

leadership didn't say anything about it and object, the group become (ph)

surety (ph) for the harmful words and actions that others took, comparing

President Obama to Hitler and to a Nazi, and the party does look very bad

when they don't stand up and say this was wrong and shameful.

MATTHEWS: Well, you know, I was in some anti-war demonstrations back

in the Vietnam war era, and I remember the big march on the Pentagon. And

although there were thousands and thousands of regular middle-of-the road

people there just thought the war was a mistake, who weren't particularly

ideological, college kids especially, there were also some old reds there,

some old liberals--I mean, not some old liberals, some old communists

were in that group. Should the war demonstrators have demonstrated against

them, these old-line lefties that had shown up to be under the umbrella? I

mean, do you always, as members of a rally, have to take odds against--

pick a fight with the oddballs that are in the group?

COHEN: Well, I think...

MATTHEWS: I'm just giving you an argument here. You're saying that

everybody in the group's responsible for everybody in the group, and I've

never seen that standard apply before.

COHEN: Well, you know, I think that not everybody. But you know, one

of the main things the group was against was against health care. And Dr.

King was assassinated in my hometown, Memphis, Tennessee, and we observed

that horrific day with activities and remembrances this past weekend. Dr.

King talked about health care being a right and that one of the great

inhumanities was not providing health care to people.

Then you have this group 40 years later, almost entirely white,

opposing the United States government for giving health care to--making

us the last industrialized country in the world to provide health care for

its people. And it just doesn't seem like we've come that far. And in

reflecting on Dr. King having been a proponent of health care and seeing

the opposition to health care, which affects so many people, white and

black, but a disproportionate amount of people who are black, it was just a

flashback to an era. Jim Clyburn said he hasn't seen words expressed since

the "60s...

MATTHEWS: Yes, I agree.

COHEN: ... by these groups.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you...

COHEN: And it seemed to be consistent.

MATTHEWS: There are some people out there on the right--I was

listening to, I guess, Fox the other night, and they're denying--Laura

Ingraham was sitting in for Bill O'Reilly--denying that there was any

evidence--of course, we had some on the other day, the voice recording

left for John Lewis, which we all know about now, where the really racist

language is on the record there.

When you were out moving around on the--on the crowd there,

incognito, if you will, did you actually hear these epithets thrown at the

black members of Congress and at Barney Frank for his orientation? Did you

personally witness that?

COHEN: I personally can't say I was. To be honest, I was listening

to Steve "Guitar" Miller my iPod.

MATTHEWS: Yes. So, you can't witness that.

Let me ask you about the issue of--well, let's take a look at some

e-mails you have been getting. They have been turned over to the FBI.

One reads--quote--"If our tea parties had hoods, we would burn

your "expletive' on a cross on the White House lawn, you total piece of"--

well, we can figure this stuff out.

And another says, "You looking son of a" blah, blah, blah. "It would

be nice to read someone who--had cut your "something' throat."

Is this something that is new for you? Or have you had to put up with

this before? I mean, people in public life--I have gotten some of this

over the years--I try not to get affected by it. Do you--have you

gotten this kind of real hate mail before, sir?

COHEN: Not regularly. Very--very--and not very often. And this

has been the most vitriolic. And we have gotten some other mail about my

religion.

And this doesn't reflect well at all either. Some lady called me the

other day and she was upset about my vote on health care--and she was a

Tea Party person--and my Tea Party statement. And she told me she was a

61-year-old lady with a disability.

And I asked her if she got her Social Security disability. And she

did. She is living off of something that was provided through a Democratic

Congress.

MATTHEWS: Yes, I know.

COHEN: And she doesn't understand.

And the same words were used against Social Security and against

Medicaid and against civil rights and voting--voting rights, that this

was a takeover, too much government, big government, and socialism and

communism. It's American as apple pie now, and so will this health care

bill be.

MATTHEWS: Yes. I had a conservative dad. I lost him. But he was

very much against government, but he sure liked Medicare when he got it.

Let me ask you this. You are a white fellow in a district that is

largely black. Haven't you taken some heat for that. Isn't there people

who make prejudicial statements about that from the left, if you will?

COHEN: Well, I guess there are some, but, you know, my district is a

wonderful district. It's a diverse district. It's predominantly African-

American. I get a lot of love in this district. I represent the district

with the way they need to be represented.

Our district needs health care. We need public education. We need

social benefits. And we have been able to deliver on those. And our

district has really overcome a lot. And we have come a long way from the

assassination of Dr. King and the days...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

COHEN: ... when the South was segregated. Memphis is on the rise.

MATTHEWS: What do you make of this sort of rise of the South, not the

negative--not the good stuff either? This governor of Virginia, we were

just talking about and arguing with Pat--I will probably argue for months

with this--when he is talking about a proclamation glorifying the

Confederacy, never mentions slavery.

You've got Rick Perry down there in Texas and his opponents talking

about secession and nullification and interposition, all this lingo that

you and I studied in school that we thought was way back before the Civil

War. And it's all coming out again. Somebody is ripping off the scab off

this.

Why are the Southern conservatives pushing the old fight again?

COHEN: Well, I do think there is race involved in it. And it's

because the parties are so separate, and people play to their base.

And the Democratic Party has most of the African-American support and

the Republicans don't. And they are just playing to their base. And it's

unfortunate. You need leadership.

And I think the Chuck Percys, the Nelson Rockefellers, the Howard

Bakers, the Bob Doles, that type of Republican is not around anymore. And

they need moderates that with--who are within the Republican Party, but

not in leadership. And these people talking about secession, it sounds

like nullification and interposition dripping off their lips.

It's not the kind of language you need to bring together America.

They talk about bipartisanship, and then they talk about meeting me at the

state line or secession. These are not the type of words you hear. And

you don't hear them in Congress.

And it's impossible to have bipartisanship when one party just says

no, no, no, and kill the bill. The whole idea of kill the bill was

difficult. I was out on the balcony at the Capitol, and the verbiage and

the vitriol was on the--it was so strong, you knew if they got that, they

want--they had ill feelings toward anybody that voted for the bill, and

that the tempers got so great.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: And it just--I had been to Birmingham, to Montgomery in the

Selma with John Lewis on the civil rights pilgrimage three weeks earlier.

We visited the 16th Street Church, when the hate got such that four young

women were bombed and killed.

We saw the Edmund Pettus Bridge and went there, where the government

oppressed people who tried to start a voting rights march.

MATTHEWS: I know.

COHEN: And to see this language again and this attitude--and there

is an undercurrent of race, because Obama, Sotomayor, Rahm Emanuel, Eric

Holder. There is an upset to it.

This did not start with George Bush and Dick Cheney, who had the

biggest budget deficits ever. They did not care.

MATTHEWS: OK.

COHEN: The biggest budget deficit reduction bill ever was the health

care bill, and, yet, they were against it.

This does not make sense, except for the parties.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Well, thank you. I do like the fact that you represented

Martin Luther King's words when you said their lips dripping with words

like nullification. You have a good memory for Dr. King's words.

Thank you so much, Congressman Steve Cohen of Memphis.

COHEN: Thank you, Chris.

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