Transcripts For MSNBCW Hardball With Chris Matthews 20140529

MSNBCW Hardball With Chris Matthews May 29, 2014



faced a waiting time of over 100 days were recorded at waiting less than a quarter of that time for attention. bottom line, the worst stories of long delayed treatment and deliberate coverup have been shown to be true, as "the new york times" is reporting late today, "the report validates that employees in phoenix kept an off the books waiting list or used other artifices to cloak long waiting lines many veterans faced for medical care." so it's come in bad. is he going to do what he made clear he was going to do, is the commander in chief going to issue a command or not? john mccain, whom obama beat back in 2008, has called for general shinseki's removal. late today, democratic senators began calling for shinseki's head, as well. tonight, the question hovers over the capital, will the president act on what everyone of both political parties believe is a genuine scandal? chuck todd, nbc news chief white house correspondent and david bennett. gentlemen, first with you, chuck, the politics of this thing, time is everything in politics, timing is. the president made clear a week ago when he set this mouse trap he'd wait until the i.g. reported. the i.g. reported late today with a bad report. the president said if the report was bad, he was going to act. in fact, he said pretty clearly shinseki would act himself to remove himself, in not so many words, but pretty darn clearly. what's the president doing now? >> well, look, they are making it clear, they seem to be creating momentum, if you want to call it that, for shinseki's exit. perhaps it's to give him room to make the decision himself, but when you see the things that they've done behind the scenes, a senior aide told my colleague that shinseki is considered on probation for the past week. this, obviously, this i.g. report doesn't help that probation status that the president was unofficially putting him on very well. you have the democratic politics on this, so, for instance, last week it was about republicans piling on calling for shinseki's resignation. today you could tell pent-up anxiety against democrats, maybe wanted to speak out but decided let's look for an avenue, give him time, wait for the i.g. report. boy, what do you have, mark udall, who has a tough race for re-election in 2014, becomes the first incumbent democrat to say time for shinseki to go. blumenthal, big veteran, spends a lot of times on veterans issues, this is a pretty big democratic supporter of the president's, he didn't call for shinseki's resignation but called for a criminal investigation that this i.g. report is so bad. the point is this, politically, chris, you know this feeling when it happens in this town, the dam has broken in the president's own party. he almost has to act because members of his own party are begging him to do so. >> is it too cynical, only reason he hasn't fired him cold is he doesn't want to step on his own headlines of a major foreign policy statement he made at west point today, wants that to be the headlines tomorrow, not the firing of shinseki, is that a fair estimate or too cold hearted? >> might be a little cynical, but you do have to realize, the president doesn't like to sort of act in haste when it comes to staffers. when you look at sort of his pattern to how people get fired from the obama administration, really stan mcchrystal, the general out there in afghanistan is the only one that's gotten fired, made a mistake, two days later, out of a job. that isn't the way president obama operates. in many ways, if you're sort of led to believe, hey, there's the door, you should go find your way out, but you're given time and space to do so, so while i hear what you're saying and that certainly makes sense if you're in the communications staff of the white house, this also fits the other pattern of the president wanting to give shinseki the opportunity to resign before the president's hand is forced. >> well, let's go back to last week, gentlemen, when president obama told reporters in no uncertain terms that the va secretary was on thin ice. here's the president setting basically what looks to me like a trap for action. >> i have said to rick, and i said it to him today, i want to see, you know, what the results of these reports are, and there is going to be accountability. >> well, the first report is in, it came in today, and it isn't pretty. an interim report from the inspector general confirmed allegations of wrong doing involving that phoenix hospital, where some of the most explosive accusations were first made. the report says, "1,700 veterans were kept on unofficial waiting lists, the hospital was reporting wait times of just 24 days, when in reality, veterans were waiting an average of 115 days, four times as long to see a doctor. staffers also destroying records to destroy the long back log. most damning, the wait times were a factor in rewards and salaries for staff." they are laying out a lot of information here. long waiting times to get medical treatment for a veteran, covering it up by making it seem it was only a fourth of that time, quarter of that time, and having a program of rewarding people based upon what they reported as the waiting time, which i said was way shorter than reality. >> yeah, that's right, chris. i mean, what we're seeing is everything that we've been expecting for the last couple of weeks. this is not new information. this is confirming, you know, the allegations that were coming out of phoenix and now increasingly more and more of these va hospital facilities. i mean, this is clearly a systemic problem. there is apparently perverse incentives rewarding people for gaming the system and cooking the books instead of delivering care for our veterans. >> let me get back to chuck on the politics. seems the president has a hat trick, if you will, of problems or republicans claim are scandals, irs, benghazi, fast and furious, they claim they are scandals, we'll see down the road if anything comes up, but now a real scandal, which both parties recognize. my question, does he risk sitting on this too long where it becomes a foursome and gets blamed for all four and this becomes the top one, because this is the most credible claim of a scandal? >> well, look, i think the real issue here, i think, that really hurts the president is the fact that combine it with the health care mess, there is this perception of a competency question about this administration, right, that, boy, they couldn't get the website right, can't seem to manage the va. yes, your heart may be in the right place and your policies may be there, but there's sort of this question that a swing voter might have of, look, do these guys know how to manage anything, do they know how to run the government? and i think that that's the narrative when you want to talk about narratives, you know, and people hate when we talk about things like that, but that is a story line that the president can't afford to have out there. >> chuck, i think there's something else here, tell me if i'm wrong, not just the agency down the line screwed up. nobody blames the president particularly for doing that, some do, partisan critics, but they want to believe when the president finds out the problem, when the true king finds out about it, he's going to fix it, and now we have the president did ling for a week. that's no question. will he did l another couple days and wait for shinseki to do something when, in fact, it's a executive decision from the top guy at this point? it's not shinseki's decision now, this is a crisis of the administration, it's the president's administration whether he stays or not, not shinseki's. >> well, i think that's right and where democrats have been torn. look, personally, what you have to understand about general shinseki is his relationships on capitol hill are very good. he personally is very good at playing old washington politics. he calls up senators, he's always on the phone, always working the phones, he's very responsive on that front, so he got a lot -- he sort of bought himself time, particularly with democrats. look, john mccain only came out today, you know, people may think john mccain's operating as a partisan republican, but there are a lot of republicans that have been giving shinseki space on this because shinseki himself has sort of this personal loyalty that is bipartisan, sort of above board, there's a lot of people that honor his service, so i think that is playing a little bit more of a role here, chris, than you realize. i'll tell you another issue that the white house has, the replacement for shinseki needs to be a big presence, needs to be a commanding presence, needs to be a stylistic change, and i think part of this is, you know, before you fire somebody, you better know who you're going to have to replace. why did stan mcchrystal so easily get fired by the president? he had david petraeus ready to go, boom, suddenly it looked like a very commanding decision. >> let me -- >> let me tell you real quick, if the president's on the phone right now and says, general, are you ready to do this and that's who he's got replacing, he can fix this problem perceptionwise in a hurry. >> let me ask, this is sort of a constitutional question. you know, i saw this with colin powell during the iraq war, he acted like he was still a general of the army and still required to take orders, a civil servant who was a fighting man, as well. this guy, shinseki, a fine man, of course, out there doing the best job he can, but he's not just a civil servant, not a headless nail. he's not covered by the -- he is a cabinet officer, he is supposed to walk. when your administration and your cabinet agency is a disaster area, you walk. that's what you're supposed to do. you don't wait for the president to fire you. you're not a civil servant who has rights under the law to keep their job. he ain't a headless nail, and yet shinseki's acting like one, like he's got some right to that job. that's not the way it works in politics. you're there at the pleasure of the president and if you do your job right, you keep it, but if you don't do your job, you accept the resignation that comes to you naturally, don't have to fight, you know, cling to office like it seems like he's doing. your thoughts. >> i agree with that, but if you listen to secretary shinseki, sounds very much like he continues to have the pleasure of the president. he also is very personally attached to this issue as a veteran himself, but more importantly, general shinseki didn't bring these problems with him. >> do you want him out or in, derek, what do you want? >> not question whether he's in or out, but let's fix the va. >> what's the first step here, get rid of him and move on, or move on and keep him? >> we're asking our members that question right now, chris, we're member driven, know this is a big decision for the president, but i agree with chuck, who is the next one in line? >> okay, thank you. well said by both you guys. thank you for the intelligent viewing of this whole thing. breaking tonight, chuck todd and derek bennett, thanks so much speaking for the veterans. coming up, let obama be obama. the president's forceful defense of his foreign policy. gone is the idea that the united states needs to intervene militarily wherever there's a problem for or fear of looking weak. plus, how do you keep guns out of the hands of people with mental health problems, disturbed people, should they have access to guns because it's their constitutional second amendment right, would they? also, edward snowden makes his case, says if snowden were a real patriot, he'd come back home to the united states and make his case to the american people and see which way the cards break. anyway, the weasel words, new mayor of new york city has a lot of difference with rudy giuliani, but nobody said it would come to this. and this is "hardball," the place for politics. well, the democrats need to stop republicans from picking up six senate seats in order to keep control themselves this november, and we've got some new polling from key senate races. let's check the "hardball" scoreboard. first to kentucky where mitch mcconnell is battling alison lundergan grimes. mcconnell is up by 3, 47%, 44%. still close, even by a republican pollster. next to michigan, a blue state republicans hope to flip this november. it's congressman gary peters leading now former michigan secretary of state land by five points. it's peters 40%, land 35%, and that's good news for the dems. that's in line with an epic mra poll that has peters up by six, 44% to 38%. finally good news there. next, new west virginia poll shows republican u.s. congresswoman shelly moore capito up by 11 over democrat natalie tennant. 49% to 38%. and we'll be right back.  yesterday president obama outlined his plan to end military operations and combat operations in afghanistan by withdrawing all troops by the end of 2016. all combat by the end of this year. well, today he followed that announcement with an emotional and forceful defense of that order, while also defending nearly every choice he's made as commander in chief in a commencement address today at west point, president obama described his approach to intervention overseas as one of reluctance and agony. here's what he said about his decisions specifically in afghanistan. >> four of the service members who stood in the audience when i announced the surge of our forces in afghanistan gave their lives in that effort. a lot more were wounded. i believe america's security demanded those deployments, but i am haunted by those deaths. i am haunted by those wounds. and i would betray my duty to you and to the country we love if i ever sent you into harm's way simply because i saw a problem somewhere in the world that needed to be fixed. or because i was worried about critics who think military intervention is the only way for america to avoid looking weak. >> those words are exactly why a lot of people voted for barack obama. the country clearly wants less intervention abroad based on all the polls, but what happens now? in afghanistan, for example, only a matter of time before the taliban is in charge over there and what does that mean politically? and perhaps the biggest question with so many americans giving their lives in that decade-long conflict in afghanistan, was the whole thing worth it? richard engel joins us now from moscow and eugene robinson with "the washington post" and an msnbc analyst. richard, i want to ask you, these are tough questions, but on the ground, can we estimate right now the comparative strength of the taliban, its cultural strength, its military strength, its popular support, against the government of karzai, whoever else succeeds him in kabul? who's going to win that fight in the long run? >> well, i think the comparative strength is probably 80/20. the taliban is not particularly popular. even in places like kandahar, it is not especially popular. a lot of afghans experience the taliban, they didn't enjoy it, they had a foreign invasion and then a years of painful occupation, girls didn't go to school. a lot of afghans don't want to roll back the clocks. the taliban remains strong in a lot of rural areas, a lot of places where the government simply can't project any power, but i don't think you have necessarily a situation where the taliban is going to come in, take over the government, but if it's 80/20, that still leaves 20% of the country, that means a very strong insurgency that they are going to have to battle for a long time. >> what about the point of the comparison of ferocity, people who join the taliban, i assume, are ready to get killed and kill. are people in the afghan army or wearing those new uniforms and have been trained, do they have that same killer instinct in the battlefield? >> some of them do. there have been loyalty issues, but the question is, will that killer instinct continue once u.s. troops leave? so far they have been doing very well in battle with u.s. troops, they are shoulder to shoulder in the tactical operations center, giving them intelligence packets, effectively saying here is the target, go and get this person. when the u.s. isn't doing that anymore, isn't providing those intelligence packets, will they be as aggressive? if their pay gets cut off, will they continue to operate? so the u.s. has to continue to stay committed for this from the afghan perspective for the government to stay strong, but we're also going to have to see what happens with the new government. you have a new government coming in. it looks like it could be abdullah abdullah, although there's still another candidate. will they be popular? towards the end, hamid karzai's government was immensely unpopular with the people. he proved not to be an inspiring figure. if either one of these men is inspiring, then it could be a game changer. a lot will play out over these next two years. >> gene, here's the question i have, why didn't the president say the word taliban yesterday or in his long speech at west point? not one reference to the forces we'd be afraid of, talking about leaving afghanistan, and no mention of the people who are going to be there in the field against people supporting the karzai government. why is the president not talking about the main threat to our policy over there? >> well, i think because he didn't want to mention what was not achieved in afghanistan, and basically, you know, look, i think what's implicit in what the president said, we're really no longer in the post cold war era. we're kind of in the post-post cold war era. we were in the post cold war era, we felt, or our policy makers felt, that with our ideals and enormous financial resources and our powerful military forces, we could essentially shape the world in our image and create these pro western democracies, and we tried it in afghanistan, we tried it in iraq. in both situations, we're ending up with far less than that and as a side effect, we're vastly strengthening one of our geostrategic enemies, iran, and the president acknowledges, no, we're in a different era now, one that has to be more realistic and, frankly, more modest in terms of its goals of shaping the world into a collection of pro western democracies. that's not really happening. >> i think that's a fair assessment of the pluses and minuses, if you're going to be more modest in aggressiveness in the world, which i support, you're going to have to set lower goals. here's more from president obama today further emphasizing his reluctance to get involved in conflicts around the world. of all kinds. let's listen. >> it is absolutely true that in the 21st century, american isolationism is not an option, but to say that we have an interest in pursuing peace and freedom beyond our borders is not to say that every problem has a military solution. tough talk often draws headlines, but war rarely conforms to slogans. as general eisenhower, someone with hard-earned knowledge on this subject, said at this ceremony in 1947, war is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly, to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men. >> what a strange camera shot that was. instead of coming tight on the president, they wanted to get the teleprompters in the picture, that was strange. according to a new poll from last month, americans clearly want less intervention abroad. everybody pay attention to this baby, 47% said america should have a less active role in the world, only 30% said it should be more active, and let me go back now to richard engel. at the same time, they are not satisfied with president obama's farm policy, only 38% of his handling of foreign policy support that which is at the lowest level of his presidency. isn't that an interesting paradox, richard, and you're out in the field in ha

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