MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

MATTHEWS: And here"s John Boehner, the Republican leader of the House"s response. Quote, "When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word "enemy," they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators, enemies of the United States."

Was the president, Congressman, ill-advised to refer to Americans as enemies?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD), DCCC CHAIRMAN: Look, Chris, this is an effort by John Boehner to once again distract people from the big issues in this race that separate the two parties. The president"s been trying to draw the contrast between what Democrats have done and will do and the fact that Republicans want to take us back to the same old policies.

And look, they want to make a lot of hay about this. I think what we need to do is move on. It"s a distraction just before the election. We need to make sure that people get out and exercise their civic responsibility and vote.

MATTHEWS: Should Latinos punish their enemies?

VAN HOLLEN: The president was just speaking politically. And you know, the irony here, Chris, is here are these guys who"ve just been pounding and pounding the president day after day, trying to make hay about this. The fact of the matter is that people need to understand whose side the president is on with respect to his policies. And when it comes to policies, the fact of the matter is the president has been working to try to have a more inclusive society and not a narrow society. And that"s what this is all about.

And again, this is an election eve distraction. Let"s get on with this election. It"s about the issues. It"s about the future. And we"re confident that when you look at the early vote and you look at the fact that undecided voters don"t like what they see when it comes to some of these far-right Tea Party candidates, that we"re going to hold onto the majority.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the way the polling is showing this and your review of it. Is this a review or a referendum on Nancy Pelosi around the country? I was in Philadelphia recently, where I grew up, and I noticed a weekend ago or so that all the ads are--I mean, they"re outrageous, I think. They"re dumping on people who are running for Congress, who aren"t even members, and saying they"re "Pelosi-o-crats," basically. It"s very personal, going after this woman leader of the House from San Francisco as if she"s running for the House in the suburbs of Philly and Delaware and places like that.

What"s it all about? I mean, this is very personal.

VAN HOLLEN: It is. And look, the Republicans have spent millions and millions of dollars trying to demonize Nancy Pelosi, and I don"t think the voters are going to fall for this at all because at the end of the day, they care about the things that matter in their lives. And we had a very recent example of this, Chris, in the special election in Pennsylvania, where...

MATTHEWS: Critz won, yes.

VAN HOLLEN: Yes. Well, you had--this was Jack Murtha"s open seat, and the Republicans did exactly what they"re doing in the other races. They tried to make it all about Nancy Pelosi, all about Barack Obama. Mark Critz made it about issues people care about, trying to make sure that we shut down these subsidies, these perverse subsidies that actually reward multi-national corporations that ship jobs overseas. He talked about the issues.

The other point about that race is, Chris, all the pundits had it wrong. The same guys in Washington who are predicting this, you know, massacre of Democrats...

MATTHEWS: OK...

VAN HOLLEN: ... all of them predicted that the Republican would win that race, and they were all wrong. This thing is not over, and I think the pundits in Washington are in for a big surprise.

MATTHEWS: So the Democrats...

VAN HOLLEN: People need to get out and vote.

MATTHEWS: The Democrats will hold the House?

VAN HOLLEN: Yes, they will. And the early vote shows that Democrats...

MATTHEWS: OK.

VAN HOLLEN: ... are energized, and the undecideds don"t like all these Republican candidates, who"ve been recruited by Sarah Palin, who want to abolish the Department of Education, who want to privatize Social Security. They just don"t like that extreme agenda.

MATTHEWS: OK. Good luck tomorrow night, Chris Van Hollen, my congressman.

VAN HOLLEN: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source