MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Department of State

Interview

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HAYES: Within the State Department itself, Tillerson was reportedly widely  loathed for hollowing out the Department he was supposed to be leading.  For more on Tillerson`s tenure, I`m joined now by Senator Chris Murphy,  Democrat of Connecticut, a Member of the Senate Foreign Relations  Committee. I saw you giving an interview earlier today in which you were  very critical of Rex Tillerson`s tenure at state. Are you happy he`s gone?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: Rex Tillerson was a very bad Secretary  of State in large part because he didn`t believe in the State Department  and he was very enthusiastically overseeing massive reorganization that if  the administration had its way was going to cut the size of the State  Department by 40 percent. He left many positions unfilled and he  telegraphed in a variety of ways that he just didn`t think that the State  Department could make progress globally on issues like human rights and  democracy promotion.
That being said, my worry is that Mike Pompeo is just going to do all of  those things more effectively and more enthusiastically. There`s no sense  that Mike Pompeo is going to come in and oppose the President on his plans  to dramatically cut the size of the Department. And from what I know about  Mike serving with him in the House of Representatives, this is someone who  really views American power through a military and covert action lens, not  through a diplomatic lens. So, no, Secretary Tillerson was a very bad  Secretary of State, that doesn`t mean the next one will be better.

HAYES: What specifically about the Iran deal? I know that`s something  that`s close to your heart or something thought a lot about and something  you advocated for and voted for, have sought to defend and the President  highlighting that as something where he`s more in line with Pompeo as  review and certification comes up on the horizon, do you have concerns  about that?

MURPHY: Well, I certainly do have concerns about it but I also know that  Tillerson wasn`t the only one that was advising the President against  pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement. The Defense Secretary  reportedly has told the President repeatedly that it would be a national  security disaster for the United States to allow Iran to start pursuing a  nuclear weapon. And by the way, if you want any chance at disabusing the  North Korean regime of their plans to get a nuclear weapon that can hit the  United States, you can`t be pulling out of nuclear agreements just when  you`re trying to negotiate a new one with the North Koreans. So I think  Trump is going to continue to hear that his desire to pull out of the Iran  nuclear agreement just because he wants to unwind everything with Obama`s  name on it is still a bad idea.

HAYES: Gina Haspel, who is a 30-year CIA veteran by all regards, she`s  well-liked within the agency itself, but she oversaw a black site in  Thailand. In that black site, suspected terrorists were detained, were  subjected to waterboarding one 83 times in a month. They were denied  sleep, loud noises played, put into coffin-like confinement boxes. Is that  disqualifying?

MURPHY: It might be. She clearly presided over a massive illegal  operation that violated both the U.S. law and international law. I`m sure  those orders came down from above her but that is no excuse. I don`t know 
her particularly well and so I`m interested to hear from her. But you know, at some point Congress and this administration has to wake up to the fact that when we have a president who continues to enthusiastically 
endorse actions that violate international human rights, we are providing bulletin board material to the very terrorists that we claim to be fighting. They happily sign up more recruits as the administration talks 
about the terrible things we have done and he continues to want to do to violate these human rights agreements all across the world.

HAYES: There was some speculation today a little back and forth from the  timeline with regards to Rex Tillerson that perhaps the final straw were  his words about Russia yesterday with regards to the apparently attempted  assassination of Skripal, Sergei Skripal who`s a former double agent for  the British who was in Russia. He was brought to Britain in a spy swap.  He was attacked it appears by a nerve agent that basically only the  Russians had custody over. There seem to be some daylight between the  President or at least Sarah Huckabee Sanders yesterday and Rex Tillerson.  Do you have concerns that that wasn`t a;; the proximate cause here?

MURPHY: I really don`t know what the proximate cause was as you said.  Calling your boss a moron is probably by itself a firing offense. But you  know, I am -- Chris, I am a little concerned about this effort today to  remake Rex Tillerson as an anti-Russia cold warrior. This is somebody who  just about three weeks ago said that Russia was probably going to interfere  in the 2018 elections. And there really wasn`t anything that we could do  about it. Nobody believed that he was arguing vociferously with the  President to apply the sanction power that Congress gave. So you know, I  think it would be a mistake to remake this disagreement between the  President and the Secretary of State over the Secretary of State`s  particularly strong beliefs about counteracting Russia.

HAYES: What -- and you go to bed tonight, this is -- something you spend a  lot of time thinking about in that committee and as a senator, what is  keeping you up most?

MURPHY: Well, what`s keeping me up most is this continued withdrawal of  American diplomats all over the world. I just came back from a big  transatlantic conference in Brussels, Belgium. It`s one that the United  States would normally send a host of diplomats to. The Trump  administration sent one person there and so the Europeans take the signal  and they are starting to make defense plans without us outside of NATO.  And as America just pulls itself back in only portrays itself through its  military might, the world goes on. And all of a sudden, the rules of the  road are different four years from now. All of a sudden, democracies in  Eastern Europe and the Balkans have back slid into something that looks  more like autocracy and it`s too late by the time that the next  administration gets there. If Mike Pompeo is going to continue that  withdrawal from the globe, it`s going to be very hard to correct for that  in two and a half years.

HAYES: Senator Chris Murphy, thanks for being with me.

MURPHY: Thanks a lot.

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