MSNBC "Hardball with Chris Matthews" - Transcript: Lawsuits Against President Obama

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Congressman James Clyburn is from South Carolina. He`s the assistant Democratic leader in the House. And David Corn is an MSNBC political analyst and Washington bureau chief for good old "Mother Jones."

Congressman Clyburn, this thing smells. It smacks of the same thing, of birtherism, of all the attempts to delegitimize this president. They`re not going to win with this suit, they just want to smear him. That`s my thinking. What`s yours?

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D), SOUTH CAROLINA: I agree with you. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. I agree with you entirely. All of this is about throwing up as much mud as they possibly can, hoping something will stick to this president.

They have failed in every attempt to delegitimize him. This is another way of trying to determine that this president will have no success, and hopefully, will go down in history as being a president of the United States that got sued by the House of Representatives. And who knows what forum they will pull on this and what judge they will get...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

CLYBURN: ... and maybe they will get some kind of a ruling to their liking.

MATTHEWS: Yes, that`s what I`m thinking about. You know, the irony is that -- and Congressman Clyburn certainly knows this -- every time you ask a Republican, most of them, What are you going to do about health care, they`ll say, Let`s have tort reform. No more frivolous lawsuits. No more frivolous lawsuits!

This is the ultimate frivolous lawsuit because as the congressman just said -- and he knows the business -- they might get the first judge to at least hear the case, and then they`ll say, We won.

DAVID CORN, "MOTHER JONES," MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You know what? I watched the hearing today in the House Rules Committee because I knew I was coming on.

MATTHEWS: Well, thank you.

CORN: I wanted to do my homework. And you had lawyers out there -- Walter Dellinger, who used to be a top guy on the Justice Department, and Jonathan Turley...

MATTHEWS: Lots of lawyers.

CORN: ... yes -- who are different sides of this, but it seemed really pretty obvious that most mainstream experts believe this is too high a legal hurdle to jump, that you don`t -- the House doesn`t have standing. So...

MATTHEWS: Doesn`t the court usually stay out of fights between the Congress and the president?

CORN: They try to stay -- and Scalia is the biggest fan out of staying out of these political fights. So the thing is, this is really -- at best, it`s a close call whether you bring this case or not. So you have to ask yourself, if most lawyers, most legal experts are not behind this, why is Boehner taking the time and energy to do this instead of working on immigration reform, gun violence...

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MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask the congressman. Why do you think, looking across the aisle, sir -- and you`re a leader -- why do you think the Republican leader, Mr. Boehner, who is not an evil man -- why is he doing this when it`s a waste of time?

CLYBURN: Because he has a certain element within his conference, the Republican conference, 40 to 50 people who are driving the agenda. These are people who do not believe that this president ought to be in office. They do not believe he`s legitimate, and they`re going to try everything they possibly can to delegitimize him.

And so if you have this lawsuit -- and no telling what will be said in their filings -- and it may give them something to hang their hats on, even if they`ve got some kind of a partial victory.

I`ve been telling all my friends today I do not believe that this is a frivolous lawsuit. I believe that this is a serious lawsuit, and I really believe that we`ve got to be serious in our response to it. Our lawyers have got to treat this as a serious attempt to delegitimize this president and not take it too lightly.

MATTHEWS: So you think they`re going to pursue it all the way and really get the best lawyers and really try to hurt the president historically with this.

CLYBURN: Absolutely. And we`d better get the best lawyers we can on our side of this issue to argue it as forcefully as we possibly can. They know that even if they were to win -- they know that it`s what, two years and three or four months left in this presidency?

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CLYBURN: Absolutely.

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