MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

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MATTHEWS: Congresswoman, you first. Thank you for coming on.

And, thank you, Congressman.

REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D), ILLINOIS: Thank you.

REP. ANDRE CARSON (D), INDIANA: Pleasure.

MATTHEWS: I"m going to be really tough here, but if you had had hearings on this 20 or 30 years ago, and said, I"m going to--I"m a Protestant guy and I"m going to hold hearings on the radicalization of American Irish, and I"m going to look for who might be supporting NORAID, who might be supporting the provisional wing of the IRA, and just go looking for them, and make some assumptions where we can find them, and root them out, that would have been seen as a pogrom, it seems to me, Congresswoman--

SCHAKOWSKY: Exactly. There"s no question about it.

MATTHEWS: -- and when you start rooting through an ethnic group, rooting through them, trying to find where the problem is and who the troublemakers are, as a presumption that they have got them in that group, let"s go nail them.

Your thoughts?

SCHAKOWSKY: You know, we have actually done that, during World War II, when we incarcerated Japanese Americans. We made an assumption about all the Japanese Americans.

But I have to tell you, Chris, not only is it counter our American values, but it"s also counterproductive to our national security, because we have a very impressive collaboration with the Muslim-American community, many of whom live in my district. And they have actually rooted out and foiled domestic terror plots, seven out of the last 11 times, 48 times over the last 120.

MATTHEWS: OK.

SCHAKOWSKY: So, you know, this is not making us safer. It"s making us more--less safe.

MATTHEWS: Let"s talk about your district. And then I want the other congressman to talk. Tell me about the feelings you have heard expressed to you by your constituents who are of Islamic faith about the holding of hearings about their community and their danger to America. Your thoughts?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, there"s a tremendous amount--

MATTHEWS: What do you hear from your people?

SCHAKOWSKY: There"s a tremendous amount of resentment, but also a very hurt feeling. People feel hurt.

They feel as if they"re loyal Americans, they"re entrepreneurs, they"re professionals, they work for the local governments, they drive cabs. They feel really hurt that they"re being singled out, particularly because they do see themselves as loyal Americans, and are.

MATTHEWS: Well, that"s fact.

You know, if you"re in my business, Congressman, you meet a lot of guys driving limousines, if you"re lucky. You meet them at hotels. You meet them around the country.

CARSON: Sure.

MATTHEWS: You meet them at church, if they"re Maronite Christian or Catholic. I meet a lot of them in my church, and not a lot of them, but a significant number of them are friends. And they must wonder, how did we get under the beacon of investigation? What did we do?

CARSON: It"s so unfortunate, Chris.

The National Consortium on the Study of Terrorism released a report. The report was a compilation of studies done by state police agencies across this great nation. And Islamic jihadists ranked number 11, a distant 11, behind the Ku Klux Klan, behind neo-Nazis, anti-immigration groups and others.

Islamic terrorism, or at least the label Islamic terrorism, is certainly a threat in this country.

MATTHEWS: Anti-abortion people, too.

CARSON: Anti-abortion. Animal rights activists as well. It"s certainly a problem. We need to contain the threat, identify the threat and isolate the threat, and bring that threat to justice.

MATTHEWS: OK. I just don"t like the idea of going after a group of people and putting a big blanket over--a big, wet, hot blanket and saying, you"re the trouble, let"s find out which of you are the guilty ones.

Here"s Congressman Peter King making his effort to defend the hearings that are coming up Thursday. Let"s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PETER KING ®, NEW YORK: There is no other group in this country, other than al Qaeda and Islamic terrorists, which is recruiting. We have always had neo-Nazis. We have also had environments--always had environmental extremists.

What makes this unique and different is, this is a homegrown group of people being recruited by an enemy from overseas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Congressman, it seems to me that one of the things we have been proudest of in our country over its history, in what is American exceptionalism, is the ability to come to this country and become an American, 100 percent.

CARSON: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: A lot of countries--you can"t go to Japan and become 100 percent Japanese. You look different. You"re not going to be Japanese. Or in China or other countries--a lot of countries are so monocultural, you can"t break in, no matter what you do, no matter how many years you stay there.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: We have had problems like that over the years, but we"re working on them. Is this work for or against assimilation?

CARSON: America--

MATTHEWS: Is it going to work against it?

CARSON: Chris, absolutely. America will not win the war against terrorism without help from Muslims. I was one of those Muslims who worked in homeland security who helped with local law enforcement, as well as the FBI.

MATTHEWS: So, you"re Muslim?

CARSON: Absolutely. I"m one of two Muslims in Congress. My dear friend, Keith Ellison, is the first. Who helped thwart these efforts.

Congresswoman Schakowsky was right. I was reminded of a conversation that Ben Franklin had at the Constitutional Convention with Mrs. Powel. She asked Ben Franklin very definitively, "What do we have, a monarchy or a republic?" And he said, "We have a republic, if you can keep it." How do we keep it?

MATTHEWS: Well said again.

Let me ask you, Congresswoman, your thoughts on the end. I want you to speak for the feelings of people that you represent. I know you have people of Islamic faith in your district. You have a very varied district. What"s this going to do a week from now when they know that they"ve been investigated as a community?

SCHAKOWSKY: Well, they feel very resentful. I"ve talked to a number of young people, older people, too, and it"s created also fear in the community. Are we going to be targeted? What"s next? Are there infiltrators in our mosques on Friday? Are my kids safe going to school with their heads covered?

So, I think it really has alienated a number of people or made them mistrustful. I mean, these are, again, loyal Americans. They want to be part of our society, of our communities, and they feel that they"re being excluded and targeted in an unfair way. And, of course, that"s exactly what"s happening. This is unfair toward them.

MATTHEWS: OK. We"ve heard your voices. I hope the country hears them. I hope the Muslim community in this country hears them, that people don"t like these hearings.

Thank you, Congressman Carson, for coming in.

CARSON: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: Thank you, Congresswoman Janice Schakowsky from out of Illinois.

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