CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

[16:15:19] SCIUTTO: We are back now with the breaking news.

"The New York Times" reporting that last year, President Trump's lawyer floated the idea of pardoning former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Joining me now is Republican Senator John Kennedy, from the great state of Louisiana. He's on the Judiciary Committee.

Senator, thanks for taking the time with us today.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: You bet.

SCIUTTO: So, you heard that new reporting from "The New York Times" there. I want to ask you this question. Would it be appropriate in your view for the White House lawyer to discuss pardoning two witnesses to the special counsel's investigation?

KENNEDY: You know, I don't know the answer to that, Jim. That is a question for the president and his attorneys. I'm not really interested in all the subplots and all this.

Here's what I'm interested in -- I believe and I think the evidence will bear this out, that a number of countries, one which of we know, Russia, tried to influence our election. Now, you can debate whether they did or didn't, but -- actually have influence, but they did try to influence the election.

I want to know what happened. I want to let Mr. Mueller finish his investigation, gather the facts, report to the American people, and then I trust American people to figure it out and make up their mind. I also want to talk about how we can stop it from happening again.

No disrespect, but Mr. Putin is a thug. He'll push you right through the wall if you let him, trying reason with him and is like trying hand feed a shark. And we're just going to have to hit him right in the face with sanctions. And --

SCIUTTO: Listen, I get the importance of that. I actually have a question on that, because there's been another revelation this week about contacts during the campaign.

KENNEDY: I saw that.

SCIUTTO: But on this issue, because we know that the special counsel, in addition to looking at meddling in the election by Russia, is looking at least at the question of potential obstruction of justice. Would a president's lawyer dangling pardons to potential witnesses, in fact targets of the investigation, constitute obstruction of justice in your view?

KENNEDY: You know, I don't know. I'm not trying to be evasive. I just don't know. That's what is frustrating about this process, though inevitable.

We get dips and dabs here and pieces of this and rumors of that. And the truth is, none of us know. That's what we have Mr. Mueller working on. And the sooner he gets the facts, let's the chips fall where they may, reports to the American people. Congress can then decide what if anything we need to do.

But more importantly, the American people will understand and they'll figure this out. They may not -- you heard me say this before, but the American people may not read Aristotle every day, but they -- they're smart. They will figure this out.

SCIUTTO: As you're aware, some of your colleagues floated the idea of passing legislation to protect the special counsel from any potential decision by the president to fire him. Would you support such legislation?

KENNEDY: I don't think it's -- number one, I don't know if it's constitutional. If President Trump issued an executive order tomorrow telling the United States Senate to take Kennedy off the appropriations committee, I think he would be -- it would be unconstitutional. I don't think it's -- I'm not sure it's constitutional for us to tell him who can fire and can't fire.

Having said, I don't think Trump's going to fire Mueller. There's no indication to me that he is. I know he's issued some tweets, but you got to watch what politicians do, not what they say.

SCIUTTO: Speaking again of the investigation, in court documents we learned about this week, the Mueller team revealed that Trump's former deputy campaign manager, of course, Rick Gates was working with, and with knowledge, he was working with a former Russian intelligence agent during the 2016 campaign.

Is that acceptable in your view? Does it raise larger questions about the kinds of people that Trump campaign aides were in touch with during the campaign?

KENNEDY: Well, it depends what they were working on and we don't know that. It depends on the context. I've been in a few campaigns. I mean, you interface with a lot of people. You want to be careful and try to not do something improper or illegal or violate campaign finance laws.

But that's what's frustrating about all of this. We get -- but again, it's inevitable. We get little bits and pieces and you have to be very careful about drawing conclusions.

That's why god made special counsels. It's to come in and let's get the facts in an objective, dispassionate way. I believe Mueller is doing that and then report to the American people and let the chips fall where they may.

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: Very briefly, that I know during campaigns, they speak with a lot of people from around the world.

KENNEDY: Yes.

[16:20:00] SCIUTTO: But you would -- if you were running for president, would you have your deputy campaign manager speak to a former Russian intelligence agent?

KENNEDY: I would be very, very careful. In today's environment, of course not. At the time, I wasn't. Things were a little different. But you have to be very, very careful, because people come to you on the campaign. In most cases, they have an agenda, and especially if it's somebody connected with the foreign government.

It doesn't mean it's always improper. And again, I don't know what happened here, but you got to be very, very careful.

SCIUTTO: I want to get to the issue of Facebook, because I know that this is something that you're very interested in. The Judiciary Committee, which you were on, is asking the Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify in two weeks. What exactly do you want to ask him about?

KENNEDY: Oh, I've got -- I've got a number of questions to ask Mr. Zuckerberg. My first question would be, is it a fair bargain for me to give up all of my personal data to Facebook and apparently everybody else in the Milky Way, in exchange for me being able to see what some of my high school buddies had for dinner?

I'd like to ask him what happened with Cambridge Analytica. Why didn't they protect my data -- our data? I'm going to ask -- I would ask him, what are they going to do to protect our data in the future?

I would ask him, why can't they make the service agreement -- our agreement with Facebook simpler? Why isn't it easier to opt out? Does Facebook really know who all its advertisers are?

Facebook says it's going to stop fake news. Has it done that? And about the way, while we're on the subject, what's fake news?

A couple years ago, the Kremlin through a hedge fund actually owned 8 percent of the stock of Facebook. What was that all about?

I'd like to ask Mr. Zuckerberg if he thinks it's in the public interests for Facebook to buy up all of its competitors. You know, I don't want to regulate Facebook to death here. I really don't. But some of this activity we're now learning about is a little bit -- it's creepy. I mean, it's creepy. And privacy matters.

SCIUTTO: It sounds like it's going to be a tough session for the Facebook CEO.

Senator John Kennedy, thanks very much for taking the time with us.

KENNEDY: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source