RACHEL MADDOW: Joining us now is Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy. He is an Iraq War veteran. He has taken the lead in the House in the effort to repeal the "Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell policy" as a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman Murphy, thanks very much for joining us.

REP. PATRICK MURPHY (D-PA), HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Thanks so much for having me back on the show.

MADDOW: How important is Gen. Powell‘s change of heart on this subject?

MURPHY: Absolutely huge. The fact that Gen. Powell, Sec. Gates, Admiral Mullen - these past two days have been a tremendous success in our efforts to repeal "Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell."

MADDOW: In today‘s House Armed Services Committee hearing, you and another veteran, Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak, who is a retired Navy admiral - you both expressed skepticism that the Pentagon needs a year-long process to figure out how to implement a change in this policy. Why are you skeptical?

MURPHY: Well, I just wanted to make sure I had them on record, but they were very clear, Rachel. It wasn‘t a question of if they were going to do this. It was a question of how. So now, we have a dual-track process. Basically, the Congress needs to act. We need to overturn the law that the Congress put in place almost 17 years ago.

At the same time, the Pentagon, because the military leadership has been very clear that they want to repeal it, are now figuring out how they‘re going to do that. They said they‘re going to get it done this calendar year. They‘re not going to delay. And I thought that was a tremendous statement by Sec. Gates today.

MADDOW: So you feel like the implementation, study, and review process that they‘re talking about updating the study, some of the other things that the secretary and the chairman talked about yesterday. Do you feel like that‘s essentially an appropriate timeline in getting this done as quickly as they can get it done?

MURPHY: And they were very clear, Rachel, because that was my question today in the Armed Services hearing that it was a question of doing it this calendar year and how they‘re going to implement the repeal of "Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell."

So now we have the president. We have the top military leadership of our country. And now, it is time for the Congress to act to do the right thing, to stand up for those men and women that are willing to take a bullet for our country to defend us, to allow them to serve openly.

MADDOW: When we last talked about your bill to repeal "Don‘t Ask, Don‘t Tell" in the House, it was very memorable. You said that your strategy was to personally, individually, you, yourself, lobby every single member of the House on the matter. I‘ve got to ask how it‘s going.

MURPHY: It‘s going great. Since the last time I was on, we‘ve got 35 new members of Congress to be co-sponsors of this bill. So now, we‘re up to 187 co-sponsors. I have about two dozen more folks in the Congress that said they‘re going to vote for it if it comes up for a vote. And we‘re working every day to get even more. And we will have the votes when it comes up for a vote this year.

MADDOW: It feels to me right now, as opposed to 1993, that the opposition on this is a little incoherent, that they‘re a little confused. And I don‘t think that‘s wishful thinking, because of everybody knows how I feel about this policy.

It just seems it‘s unsustainable for me now of opponents of this repealing this policy to say that they‘re on the military side while they‘re siding against Admiral Mullen and Gen. Powell and Gen. Shalikashvili. Do you have a sense of what you‘re up against about what the strategy is on the other side of this now?

MURPHY: They were going to throw everything at us. And you know, Bobby Kennedy once said that change has enemies and change is hard.

So I‘m not taking anything for granted, even though we have the past two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff - well, two former ones, Shalikashvili, Colin Powell, and now the current one, Admiral Mullen, and the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief and, frankly, the American public, I am not taking anything for granted.

We need to make sure that we get this done this year. We act with a sense of urgency. There are so many heroes that are serving right now in our Armed Services that are one day or one month away from being turned in because they happen to be gay.

Not for any type of sexual misconduct, but just because they‘re gay. It‘s wrong. It hurts our national security and that‘s why we need to change it.

MADDOW: Iraq War veteran and Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy. You‘ve been a real champion on this issue and we are grateful that you make the time to talk to us about it. It‘s a real pleasure. Thank you.

MURPHY: Thanks, Rachel. Thanks so much.