congressional authorization. but remember, obama has nothing so far and that s why i think it s important that he get some sort of authorization. final thought from you, steven? there are times when it makes sense for the president to go to congress, particularly when there s going to congress on this syria resolution where there is going to be steep splits in both houses and we will not present any type of united front is really fraught with danger. if i could just respond, i think that s the time precisely when you should go to congress because going to war is such a great step that you need authorization when the country is divided about it. we re going to keep debating this and come back to it. jeff, steve, thank you.
okay? all right? even that didn t go over well. congressman rick crawford, by the way, republican from kansas said 99% of calls to his office were from calls for action in syria. mike fitzpatrick received 126 calls opposing engagement and only one call in favor. and the independent is saying unanimously people up there are saying do not get involved. brad sherman from california said i don t know a member in congress whose e-mails are in favor of this. we re joined by elijah cummings from maryland. hasn t voted out voting in favor of the syria resolution. and juan vargas from california coming out in favor of strikes. i want to start with mr. vargas. i haven t met you before, sir. where are you on this? more importantly reporter: your constituents to start with? my constituents generally are
not in favor of it. i think it s the rest of the country. but i certainly am, i m in favor of this. the reason is, you ve used these types of weapons, these weapons should never be used. the amount of children he s killed, grown-ups, we have to do something else. if the rest of the world doesn t want to come along with it, we have to do it ourselves. we can t allow this to stand. what about the rest of the resolution, the mccain jab, talking about arming rebels? we don t know who the good guys are and bad guys. they all look pretty bad to me. but the issue of the chemical weapons and gassing all these children. i mean, how high does the pile of children have to be before we re outraged and say we re going to do something about it. they killed hundreds of kids. they ought to do something about it. mr. cummings, where are you hearing, most importantly, what are you hearing from people in maryland? first of all, my
same with nato. you re right. that is not formally part of the constitution but i think as part of the common law of the international law has developed the past 30 years, i think they are legitimate substitutes for congressional authorization. but remember, obama has nothing so far and that s why i think it s important that he get some sort of authorization. final thought from you, steven? there are times when it makes sense for the president to go to congress, particularly when there s going to be unanimity in congress on this syria resolution where there is going to be steep splits in both houses and we will not present any type of united front is really fraught with danger. if i could just respond, i
state kerry for huffington post. he s at ground zero while the president s away at the summit. john kerry, former senators having to deal with the fears and angst of democratic members who are coming to him and saying, assure me that we re not going to get into a quagmire here. my constituents don t want another quagmire. and kerry s whole message is, this is about chemical weapons, it s not about a civil war. but it s very hard to get that message through to skeptical democratic members. senators you house members who back in their districts in their state are being told 50 to 1 is that their own constituents don t want it. the problem is, you ve got this whole mccain side car thrown on this whole resolution, howard. right. mccain drove a very hard bargain. he said not only do we have to attack them with a punitive raid using chemicals, we now