MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript

Interview

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Congressman Garamendi, thank you very much for being here tonight.

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), CALIFORNIA: It"s good to be with you and thank you for covering this.

MADDOW: Let me ask you about the difference of opinion that you have with the president on this. Why do you believe troops can be withdrawn faster than the president seems to be willing to push for?

GARAMENDI: Well, I have just respect for the president and people advising him on this matter. But I see it different. I think the president, unfortunately, missed an enormously important opportunity to pivot.

The successful killing of bin Laden was a pivot point to move back to the original strategy of going after the terrorists wherever they happen to be in the world. Instead, we are now mired down in a very long-term horizon of nation-building and fighting in the middle of a five-way civil war in Afghanistan. It is a no-win policy and it"s going to cost us an enormous amount of blood, men and women and an enormous amount of money. It"s going on for a long time. And it"s not the right place to be and it"s not the right strategy.

MADDOW: Is there energy in the Congress for an actual confrontation with the president over this?

Nancy Pelosi tonight responded to the president"s speech by saying, "It"s been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of U.S. forces would happen sooner than the president laid out. We will continue to press for a better outcome."

Your legislative work on this subject obviously entails a bit of confrontation with the White House on this subject.

When you take the temperature of the House of Representatives right now in terms of how much people care about this issue and how much they are itching for a fight over it, do you see confrontation ahead?

GARAMENDI: Yes, I do. And I think the confrontation is going to start tomorrow and the days immediately following. We have the defense appropriation bill up, and many of us are looking at ways of amending that bill so as to really force a different strategy. One that will bring the troops home much, much faster, one that focuses this nation on the terrorists rather than on nation-building in Afghanistan.

One of the points that Mr. Nasr made is extremely important, and that is the necessity--the absolute necessity of getting negotiations under way. It"s a civil war--not just one group against another, but five or six different groups all fighting each other for position in Afghanistan where there never was a strong central government, but rather some sort of an alliance between the various strong groups that existed, both ethnic, regional and the like.

That has to get under way and we need to do it right away and we need to focus on the terrorists. Where are they? Well, they"re in Yemen, they"re in Somalia and they"re in the United States. And we"ve got to focus where the real danger is.

MADDOW: In terms of that issue of a political settlement and potential negotiations, the president did speak about that tonight as the way this war is going to end. He did talk about that as an important thing that needs to be pursued in Afghanistan.

Is your criticism of him on that point that you"re not hearing enough specifics in terms of what he wants to get out of those negotiations, or are you just not seeing enough progress toward any sort of political settlement yet?

GARAMENDI: Well, the president tonight and in previous writings on this has been very clear about the starting point for the negotiations. No terrorists coming back into Afghanistan, obeying the constitution, whatever that constitution might be, and the end of hostilities. That"s a good starting point.

But what we have not seen is people around a negotiating table getting down to the hard work of negotiating a settlement among the various parties, all f which have a stake in the future of Afghanistan, and we have to keep in mind the surrounding countries that are also interested in this.

Those are tough negotiations. They have got to begin. You know, I think back on the Vietnam War. And, ultimately, you had to get to the negotiating table. That"s what has to happen here.

And we also have to be very, very aware of what are we there for. Are we there to build a nation or are we there to go after the terrorists? Originally, it was to go after the terrorists. We succeed. We did that job.

Now, focus pivot--focus on the terrorists where they happen to be around the world. And it won"t cost us $100 billion or $120 billion this year. We"ve got a deficit issue.

You want to save a third of a trillion dollars? Get this war over soon. You"ll save a third of a trillion dollars in reduction.

You want to educate Americans, you want to build our infrastructure here, you want to make America strong, you want to once again build the manufacturing base of this country? We need that money back here in the United States.

MADDOW: Congressman John Garamendi, Democrat from California--thanks very much for joining us this evening, sir. Appreciate getting your perspective on this.

GARAMENDI: Thank you.

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