CNN "Wolf" - Transcript: Syria
Interview
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BLITZER: President Obama now has all the Congressional authority he needs to arm and train those so-called moderate rebels in Syria as well as a plan to expand air strikes there. But what if the U.S. did nothing? That question is being raised today by the "New York Times" columnist, Thomas Friedman. He quotes Global Intelligence expert George Friedman asking this, "if ISIS really is a problem for the United States, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia have far more at stake in this than the United States. So long as they believe that United States will attempt to control the situation, it is perfectly rational for them to back off and watch or act in the margins or even hinder the Americans.
After getting Congress' support for arming Syrian rebels, President Obama praised the vote that a bi-partisan insertion that Americans, quote, "do not give into fear." Our next guest is among several of the key Democrats in the House of Representatives who voted against the president's proposal. Joining us now, Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York. Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. REP. JERRY NADLER, NEW YORK: Thank you.
BLITZER: Have you lost confidence in the president?
NADLER: Oh, no. No, that wasn't it.
BLITZER: You voted against what he asked you to vote for.
NADLER: I disagreed with this on two basic grounds. Number one, I think that we don't know who we are arming over there and we don't --
BLITZER: Moderate Syrian rebels.
NADLER: Moderate Syrian rebels, if you can find them. I heard someone on T.V. the other day say a moderate Syrian rebel was a Muslim brotherhood. We have no guarantee they won't turn those arms against us. That's one problem. The other problem --
BLITZER: Is the president wrong? Because he wants to arm --
NADLER: The other -- the other -- the --
BLITZER: -- those moderate Syrian rebels.
NADLER: Well, if you can find proper moderate Syrian rebels. I am somewhat a dubious and we've seen arms turned against us in the past.
BLITZER: But their argument is over the past couple of years, they vetted a bunch of these guys and they think they are on the right path.
NADLER: And they may be right and they might be wrong with some of them. But my bigger argument was that if we're going to be waging offensive war and our air strikes on ISIS is offensive war, et cetera, the president has no authority to do that under the Constitution, legally, unless he gets authorization from Congress.
BLITZER: He did get two votes in the Senate and House over the past few days --
NADLER: Those -- they --
BLITZER: -- to arm the Syrian rebels.
NADLER: To arm the Syrian rebels. My concern is that that vote might be viewed by the press, by the public and even by the courts as the functional equivalent of an authorization for use of military war -- force which it is not. I don't want to see it used as a Gulf of Khon Kaen resolution. And what we have been doing --
BLITZER: He says he doesn't need any more Congressional authorization. He goes back to 2001, the authorization to go after Al Qaeda, he sees Al Qaeda as an offshoot of Al Qaeda.
NADLER: I'm somewhat surprised to hear him say that. I would expect George Bush to say that. That's the kind of legal argument at least the imperial presidency and that completely cuts out Congress and the American people from the decision to go to war. That's an anti- constitutional argument. The idea that a resolution passed in 2001, 13 years ago, to attack Al Qaeda in Afghanistan because of their role in attacking us on 911 can be used 13 years later, in entirely unforeseen circumstances against an enemy who didn't exist at that point, is a real stretch.
BLITZER: This must be really painful for you. You're a good Democrat. You voted, I assume, for this president in 2008 and 2012.
NADLER: I certainly did.
BLITZER: You've worked with him on a whole bunch off issues. But right now, it sounds to me like you think he's taking the country down the wrong path.
NADLER: I think he's taking the country down the wrong constitutional path. And this is a path that many of post war -- post World War II president have gone and we've got to stop it because otherwise -- we're getting to the point where any president can take us to war and Congress has no role. I voted against the resolution, to a large extent, because of that. The president wants to oppose ISIS, which I think we should. We are to get an authorization through use of military force from Congress and we are to be debating that. Last week and this week.
BLITZER: You know that's not going to happen until after the midterm elections.
NADLER: It's not going to happen --
BLITZER: Congress has now gone into recess.
NADLER: It's not going to happen until after midterm elections. I think that's unfortunate. But it's even more unfortunate that if Congress doesn't vote it, we're going to go ahead anyway. Congress ought to control this. That's the constitutional scheme.
BLITZER: The Congress isn't even in town anymore, at least for a couple of months.
NADLER: That's right. But even if we were -- the problem with what's happening is, even if we were to come back, or even when we come back, we vote on an authorization for use of military force. If it were voted down, the administration claims the authority to keep going anyway and that's a basic constitutional --
BLITZER: That's what they said.
NADLER: The other thing is that --
BLITZER: By the way, if there were such a vote, do you think it would pass?
NADLER: Probably.
BLITZER: In the House and the Senate?
NADLER: Probably. But, I mean, it would depend on what is going on at that point. And what it said, I mean, you have to -- you know, how broad is it? How wide is it? And so forth. But there's another problem, too, and that is that we are being -- ISIS is not a direct military threat to the United States, at the moment. ISIS is a direct military threat to our allies in the Middle East, to Saudi Arabia, to Jordan, to the Emirates, maybe even to Israel potentially. It's a threat to our interest in the Middle East.
I don't understand two things. One, why our allies there are not willing to put troops on the ground first. It's a far greater threat to them than to us. And if they don't see that threat, I'm not sure why we do. Second of all, the threat -- there is a threat to us. But that threat to us is that people from the United States, from western Europe, go to the Middle East, fight with ISIS, get trained with ISIS and then come back here to create murder and mayhem. But that threat is not dealt with by whether ISIS captures another province or is thrown out of another province. That doesn't defect the magnitude of the threat - of the immediate threat to us. That threat has to be fought with appropriate surveillance, counter intelligence, border control here and abroad. It's a different kind of threat. It's a counterterrorism operation. It's not a military operation.
BLITZER: It's not necessarily a full-scale war.
NADLER: That's right.
BLITZER: Yes.
NADLER: Now -
BLITZER: Congressman, unfortunately, we're out of time, but you made your points and you made them well.
NADLER: Thank you.
BLITZER: Thank you very much for joining us.
NADLER: Thank you.
BLITZER: Jerry Nadler, Democrat from New York.
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