MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

One week now into 2010 and the battle for U.S. Congress gets tougher every day. Do Republicans really have a shot at taking over the House of Representatives? And what can Democrats do to stop him? In a moment, we‘re going to talk to a Republican congressman who‘s out there scouring the country for new candidates to help them take over.

But first, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, he‘s chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. It‘s called the DCCC. He‘s also my congressman.

How is it look in playing defense and keeping Pelosi speaker?

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Well, we‘ve said, Chris, from day one that this is going to be a tough and challenging cycle. The first midterm of a new president always is. But this gloom and doom talk of 1994 all over again is just Republican spin.

In fact, Michael Steele, the head of the RNC, just the other day in a moment of great clarity said, "We‘re not taking back the House. Republicans aren‘t taking back the House." And to add insult to injury, he went on to question whether they could even lead in the unlikely event that would ever happen.

Look, tough cycle-yes. 1994 all over again-no way.

MATTHEWS: All right. What you‘re going to do if we get hit again? We actually get hit like on 9/11 or something like it, one of these plane attacks actually works? Somebody like Dick Cheney is going to go into interplanetary television on something like that.

Will that be a political issue come November if we are hit again?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, it shouldn‘t be the kind of a political issue.

Dick Cheney has demonstrated that he will make anything a political issue.

I think the American people‘s reaction to all of this is, look, you guys should be able to get together in the interest of national security. When you have a problem like we had with the attempted Christmas bombing, they want people to come together to say, where did we go wrong, let‘s fix the problem together.

I think it‘s a great mistake for Dick Cheney to be trying to politicize some of these issues.

As you know, the Obama administration has been incredibly firm from day one against al Qaeda. They have put more resources into Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were already in Yemen after al Qaeda. They have been in Somalia. These guys have had their eye on the ball.

MATTHEWS: What are the facts that are going to decide this year‘s politics? You need to get a health care bill through, is that fair? If you don‘t, it‘s a disaster.

VAN HOLLEN: Yes. We need-we need to show.

MATTHEWS: Is it a disaster if you don‘t get a bill?

VAN HOLLEN: I think it‘s a significant problem because, I think, it‘s a question of whether or not we can govern. We need health care reform and if we failed to get it, not only would the American people have to live with the status quo, which I think is a problem.

MATTHEWS: Right. But, politically.

VAN HOLLEN: Yes. But it would embolden.

MATTHEWS: But politically, would it be a disaster? Yes or no, would it be disaster?

VAN HOLLEN: It would be a huge problem.

MATTHEWS: Huge problem.

Number two, if the unemployment rate hangs up there, we haven‘t talked about it because of this crisis over the attack, attempt to bring down the plane with all the people on it. But the unemployment rate remains up there. If it stays up at 10 percent, can the Democrats hold the House?

VAN HOLLEN: The economy is going to be.

MATTHEWS: Can you hold the House?

(CROSSTALK)

VAN HOLDEN: Yes. Yes, we can hold the House but we‘re not going to -

I believe the unemployment rate is coming-is going to come down. It already has begun to turn the corner, in terms of the number of people who lose their jobs.

And people, remember-look, American people are fair. They know when this president was sworn in one year ago, the economy was falling through the tank, and so, the question people are going to have is: why would you give the keys to the car back to the guys who drove it into the economic ditch and then walked away from the accident? Not a single Republican in House voted for the economic recovery bill. That‘s helped stabilize the economy. We won‘t be happy.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How good could we do with the economy this year? Can we get the unemployment rate down below eight? Can we do that this year?

VAN HOLLEN: I don‘t. I‘m not an economist, Chris. I don‘t-I

think most economists would say that would very be difficult. No, I don‘t

I‘m not making predictions on the economy.

MATTHEWS: Because I‘m looking at the horror-the political horror is nothing compared to the human horror. But the political horror is that if you have an unemployment rate of 10 percent, we get hit between this year between now and next November, which is much worse than losing an election, of course. And you have a health care bill that dies on abortion rights the last minute, the Democrats, it seems to me, could lose 50 or 75 seats?

VAN HOLLEN: First of all, we‘re going to get a health care reform bill, a good one, signed. We have don‘t want to live with the status quo, the insurance companies run health care today.

MATTHEWS: Right.

VAN HOLLEN: We don‘t want to do that.

Economy-again, Republicans helped drive the economy into the ditch.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

VAN HOLLEN: They were not with us. They were AWOL when it came to the economic recovery bill. Not a single Republican.

MATTHEWS: OK. Why does Nancy Pelosi get a bad press? She‘s smart. She‘s sharp. She wins every one of the big fight. She‘s the best speaker since Tip, I think. Why does she get bad press?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, look, the Republicans have tried to demonize her. They try and everyone tries to come up wit some enemy. The fact of the matter is the strategy of running against Nancy Pelosi has failed. They have tried many times to run ads against our candidate, with Nancy Pelosi and President Obama before he was president. It didn‘t work.

MATTHEWS: You know what Tip O‘Neill‘s job approval was when he left?

Sixty-seven percent.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, that‘s a failed strategy for them.

MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you very much, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, fighting to keep the Democrats in power.

Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy is in California. He‘s recruiting House candidates for 2010.

Are you going to hit all those three buttons-terrorism, unemployment and health care bill? Are those the three buttons for you guys?

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY ®, CALIFORNIA: I think it‘s going to be jobs.

There‘s lack of jobs in the United States. Unemployment is at 10 percent. This president said you give him a stimulus bill by a certain deadline, unemployment would never go above 8.5 percent. That‘s not the case. It has.

MATTHEWS: Well, what do you think was the result-the cause of the unemployment situation which developed late last year? We were facing a Great Depression. What was the cause of that? Was it-was it President Obama? Was he the cause of it, the fact that he was going to be elected president or he had been elected?

Some Republicans say that he‘s the result. He is the cause of the bad economy because it looked like he was going to win last year. I‘ve heard those ridiculous arguments. Would you make that case that because he was going to win last November, the economy began to tank? Would you make that case today?

MCCARTHY: No. No. I‘d make the case the regulations that have gone through, the stimulus bill that did not work.

And Republicans didn‘t sit back and all just say no. We actually produced our own bill. We scored our bill and it produced twice as many jobs with half the money. Congressman Eric Cantor personally handed it to the president. We invited this president to our conference, but none of the ideas were taken.

Nancy Pelosi, the day that the president walked out from our conference, introduced a political stimulus bill that now they claim thousands of jobs are created in places of America that don‘t even exist.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about the 9/11 attack. Was that in anyway the fault of the Republican administration at the time?

MCCARTHY: The 9/11 attack-I think it was a built up problem that you saw didn‘t have the intelligence. And I think, to build an intelligence, you have to go much further back to find that it was the lack thereof.

MATTHEWS: So, the current problems facing our country are not the result of last year but the 9/11 attack was the result of a previous administration. Aren‘t you double-dealing here, saying if something goes wrong, horrifically wrong, it‘s OK for you, a Republican, to blame it on a previous Democratic administration, but if something goes wrong on Democratic watch, they can‘t blame it on what they inherited. Why is there a double-standard, sir?

MCCARTHY: Chris, there‘s not a double standard. When there is a problem with America.

MATTHEWS: There is with you. You just gave met double standard. You said 9/11 was not the fault of President Bush.

MCCARTHY: Chris, I didn‘t say not the fault. I said, when you talk about the gathering of information, you don‘t change that overnight. It takes time to build up. Now, what do you do with that information when we have a system.

MATTHEWS: So, why is Dick Cheney attacking this administration.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Excuse me, Congressman, you‘re again caught with double-dealing, because Dick Cheney is all over the place, trolling around and attacking this president for what happened with the Christmas bombing and he-you say it‘s OK for President Bush to blame a previous administration for the worst attack on our homeland since Pearl Harbor and when there‘s an attempted attack on our country, you don‘t let this president take any credit for the fact he inherited a system which isn‘t working. This is a complete inconsistency with what you have just said.

MCCARTHY: Chris, you can try to put words in my mouth, but that‘s not what I said.

MATTHEWS: Well, we have a tape. We will play it for you again if you‘d like.

MCCARTHY: I will tell you, when you have an attack upon America, we come together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. And we need to find the problem and move forward.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Did Dick Cheney do that last week? I‘m sorry, Did Dick Cheney come together as Americans or did he run out an e-mail, an attack on the president‘s support for this country and desire to save this country from attack? Did he take a cheap shot at President Obama, Dick Cheney? Did he or did he not? Was he uniting behind President Obama with his little e-mail to "Politico" the morning of?

MCCARTHY: I think individuals can put their point across of how they want to do. I serve an elected office. I serve in a position that we are going to work together to make this country safe.

MATTHEWS: Good. So you don‘t agree with the Cheney approach?

MCCARTHY: I think we need to make this country safe. We look today - I applaud the president saying the buck stops with him, but what I want to find out is what we do with it. If we found that people had-look, for instance, the father came to the CIA and said, "I‘m worried" about my son. He gets on the plane without a passport.

MATTHEWS: Right.

MCCARTHY: He travels to different countries into Detroit without even a jacket, without even luggage, buys a ticket with cash. There are so many options within there that‘s already there that should have been caught, why wasn‘t it? And I don‘t think from a perspective we care about which party is to blame, we want to solve the problem.

MATTHEWS: When you‘re back in Washington, Mr. McCarthy, Congressman, please come on the show. I‘d love to have you on as a guest.

Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California, a member of the Republican Party, out looking for recruits to take over the House.