MTP Transcript for Feb. 11, 2007

REP. BOEHNER: But why not give us an...

MR. RUSSERT: ...that this resolution would demoralize the troops. But the secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said that’s just not true.

REP. BOEHNER: Well, I understand what they said. I got an e-mail several nights ago from a lady named Lisa Bell Clay, used to work for me. And she left when her husband got transferred down to southern Virginia. He was a, a Marine. Now, he was killed in Iraq defending this country. She sent me an e-mail the other night to say, “Listen, I’m glad somebody’s standing up to understand, to, to support our troops and to make sure that there’s a long-term strategy for victory here.’ Now, this is—we’re, we’re in a very serious fight. And I, I just finished reading last fall a—Lincoln, “Team of Rivals.” And look at the number of times that Lincoln could’ve given up or should’ve given up. But he had a goal, the—hold the union together. And look at the difficulties of Franklin Roosevelt had during World War II. Now, he could’ve folded his tent and cut a deal, but he had a goal in mind of, of preserving freedom.

And the issue here is not just Iraq. Look at, look at what we do if we leave there in chaos and what, what the Iranians do. They’re there stirring up the problems, to a large extent, in Iraq today. Their influence, they want to grow it in the greater Middle East. They’re in there with Hezbollah...

MR. RUSSERT: So we stay...

REP. BOEHNER: ...in Lebanon.

MR. RUSSERT: ...there—we stay there endlessly.

REP. BOEHNER: I think that we have to find a way to help the Iraqis build a safe and secure Iraq.

REP. HOYER: John, we’ve been saying—for—that for a long period of time.

REP. BOEHNER: I know we have.

REP. HOYER: This is now four years that we’ve been at this effort and three and a half years after the president said the mission, whatever the mission was, was accomplished. Now we don’t know what the mission is of these 21. Is it to stabilize it? How long are we going to stay there? And the overwhelming advice of our military is “This will not work,” and so many of your members say this will not work.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me follow up on...

REP. HOYER: We need to move in a new direction.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me follow up on Congressman Boehner’s point about cutting off funding.

REP. HOYER: Right.

MR. RUSSERT: Because John Murtha, a key member of your delegation, Mr. Hoyer, said this. “John Murtha (D-PA), a sharp critic of the war and chairman of the subcommittee that oversees defense funding, is separately preparing language to block money for the additional troops in Iraq unless the military meets certain readiness standards. He said he will introduce his proposal on March 15 as an attachment to Bush’s request for Iraq war funding. ‘The hope is we will affect the surge.’” And then this: “Murtha says he would probably [try] to block the use of funding to extend the tours of soldiers beyond one year. ‘We’re going to stop that,’ [Murtha] said.” So John Murtha, clearly, wants to cut off funding for this war...

REP. HOYER: No, no...

MR. RUSSERT: ...in some form or fashion.

REP. HOYER: If you read that carefully, what he said, “unless certain conditions are met.” I think every American will agree with the conditions. Jack Murtha talked about this the other day. First of all, he doesn’t want to send troops that aren’t trained. He doesn’t want to send troops that aren’t fully equipped. And what he’s saying is, if you’re going to send troops, certify to us that they are fully trained and fully equipped. It was Murtha, after all, who found out that they didn’t have sufficient body armor when they were sent to Iraq, they didn’t have the armored humvees that they needed when they were sent to Iraq. I think the American public believes those are reasonable conditions prior to sending some of our people in harm’s way.

MR. RUSSERT: But how about telling the commander in chief he’s going to limit tours to one year for soldiers?

REP. HOYER: Well, I think the commander and chief and Rumsfeld, in particular, made a huge mistake in determining that they could do this on the cheap. It was supply-side war from their standpoint. You do less and get more. The fact of the matter is we didn’t send enough troops initially, and it now is clear that one of the reasons we didn’t is because we didn’t contemplate the challenge that was confronting us. We didn’t contemplate correctly how we were going to bring stability to Iraq, which has led to all of the adverse consequences that John speaks of. And, and thirdly, we did not contemplate that in prosecuting this war we were going to undermine every substantially our ability to confront terrorism in Afghanistan. All of which...

REP. BOEHNER: Steny, Steny, Steny.

REP. HOYER: ...was a, a very bad mistake.

REP. BOEHNER: If you’re...

REP. HOYER: Senator Hagel says it’s one of the biggest foreign policy mistakes he’s seen in his lifetime.

REP. BOEHNER: Steny, if you’re not going to cut off troops—cut off the funding for the troops in harm’s way then why not allow Republicans to bring a resolution to the floor and let the House vote up or down on that resolution?

REP. HOYER: That’s a good question, and you’re going to have that opportunity. But initially...

REP. BOEHNER: When? When? When?

REP. HOYER: ...initially, the first thing we’re going to do...

REP. BOEHNER: When? When?

REP. HOYER: Within the next 30, 45 days...

REP. BOEHNER: Well, see, that’s the point—that’s the point, Steny.

REP. HOYER: ...John. You got to have—well, John, you asked me a question.

REP. BOEHNER: You told your members...

REP. HOYER: Let me answer it. Let me answer it.

REP. BOEHNER: You told your members the other day...

REP. HOYER: John, let me answer the question.

REP. BOEHNER: ...this is the first step—this is the first step.

REP. HOYER: OK. I’m saying...

REP. BOEHNER: That’s how you got them all together.

REP. HOYER: ...that we do not agree with the president’s surge. The military doesn’t agree, Maliki doesn’t agree, the American people don’t agree. And we’re going to allow members with full debate, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to let their—give their opinion and then to vote: Do you agree with the president’s proposal? Republican president has made a proposal. The Congress is now going to be able to say...

REP. BOEHNER: On a nonbinding resolution.

REP. HOYER: ..we agree...

REP. BOEHNER: Let’s have a real resolution on the floor. It’s a bill that says, “We will not cut the funding for our troops in harms’ way.”

REP. HOYER: John, do you...

REP. BOEHNER: Let’s have the—let’s have that vote on the floor this week.

REP. HOYER: John, with all due respect, do you remember in 1995 when you voted for a nonbinding resolution not to send 20,000 troops to Bosnia?

REP. BOEHNER: That’s correct. That’s correct. That’s before there were any troops sent, before any troops were in harm’s way.

REP. HOYER: Well, it’s a surge; they haven’t been sent yet.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman Boehner, the inspector general report about some of the intelligence that came out of the Pentagon extremely critical of that operation. Do you agree with the inspector general?

REP. BOEHNER: There’s all kinds of debate about what the Pentagon was doing and what they—what—weren’t doing. It’s clear to all of us, Democrats and Republicans, that we have flawed intelligence. The CIA had bad intelligence, the Pentagon had bad intelligence. And, for that matter, all of our allies around the world had the same bad intelligence. And so that’s why Republicans voted to set up the national intelligence directorate to reform our intelligence activities.

REP. HOYER: The 9/11 Commission, of course, recommended that. But, Tim, the real problem with this issue is, first of all, we asked for this report in ‘04. It’s now coming out in ‘07. Secondly, what apparently happened here was the intelligence community reached a consensus, the deputy secretary, or assistant secretary of defense for policy, not for intelligence, decided he did not agree with that and forwarded his view rather than what the consensus of the intelligence community was. And...

MR. RUSSERT: So what do you do about it?

REP. HOYER: Well, I’ve, I’ve written, along with Mr. Skelton and Mr. Reyes, a letter to both Negroponte and Gates, the D.N.I., currently, going to be deputy secretary of state, and to the secretary of defense and said, “What’s going on here? Why do we allow a secretary—assistant secretary a policy to subvert the intelligence advice that’s being given to the commander in chief? That’s wrong, and, and I don’t know whether it led to miscalculations or not. There’ve been so many miscalculations, it’s difficult to tell that this generated one of them. But the fact of the matter is, what was done was wrong. We want to get to the bottom of it.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to a domestic issue. In the front page of The New York Times today, talking about ethics and—dealing with lobbyists. Congress passed legislation, people said, “We’re going to take money out of this system.” And yet, look at this article. And I’ll read it for you and our viewers: “Congress Finds Ways to Avoid Lobbyist Limits. The 110^th Congress opened with the passage of new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets. But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having lobbyist-financed fun. In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), [and] a Presidents’ Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000). ... The lobbyists and their employers typically end up paying for the events, but within the new rules. Instead of picking up the lawmaker’s tab, lobbyists pay a political fund-raising committee set up by the lawmaker. In turn, the committee pays the legislator’s way.”

So rather than have the lobbyist fund the trip, you create a campaign committee. That campaign committee has this event, the lobbyist gives money to the campaign committee, and the campaign committee pays for the congressman’s trip. It’s just a way to circumvent a law you just passed.

REP. BOEHNER: Tim, we, we raise political money to run campaigns. Democrats do it, and Republicans do it. When, when we put in the campaign finance laws, the Shays-Meehan bill a number of years ago, I voted against it because I thought it was nonsense. I think what we ought to do is we ought to have full disclosure, full disclosure of all of the money that we raise and how it is spent. And I think that sunlight is the best disinfectant. But there, there are a number of different ways that we go about raising those funds. Some of these are golf events, some of them are, are receptions, some of them are dinners.

REP. HOYER: Tim, let...

MR. RUSSERT: Will you—will you try to close this loophole?

REP. HOYER: Tim, let me say that, in terms of this loophole, what we did when we came to the Congress, we adopted some ethics rules which are going to make sure that, first of all, you can’t get meals, you can’t live off lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Some members did that; some members are now out of Congress and in jail. You cannot have lobbyists or organizations pay for your travel on their private jets. We said that’s not going to happen. You can’t do it even with your own money. Now, as John pointed out, there is fund-raising. Fund-raisings usually have a reception, a dinner or an event of some type. That was not dealt with in those rules, and that’ll be dealt with in the campaign finance rules. But, very frankly, the answer ultimately is if you’re going to stop that, it’s public financing. Neither the public nor the Congress is going to support public financing, so you’re going to have fund-raising. So whatever way you do that is going to be subject to scrutiny. And I agree with John, public disclosure so the public knows what’s going on is—until you get the public financing—the only way the public can check that.

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