MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Trump Campaign

Interview

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HAYES: Washington Post Matt Zapotosky, thank you very much. For more on the high stakes of this confrontation, I'm joined by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. There's been lots of talk about words like constitutional crisis and things like that and Saturday Night Massacre and where are we today after what the President did today?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: We're getting really close. I worry that the Justice Department is starting to become complicit in the erosion of our democracy. They very clearly buckled here. Whether it's to save individuals' jobs, we don't know. But listen, the President is not to be afforded under the Constitution any greater protection from investigation or prosecution than you or I. If there was an investigation occurring into either of us, and we had not been charged, we couldn't go to the FBI or to the law enforcement agency that was in charge of that investigation and ask for information about their sources and methods and information because that would be helpful to us in covering up our tracks, as it will potentially be to the President as he starts to get information about a pending investigation into his wrong doing. So I'm very worried about what happened today. Clearly, the Justice Department still has to go through this internal investigation. But the very fact that they are beginning to crack greatly worries me.

HAYES: The President saying this about handing over documents, to your point. If FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that's a really big deal. Only release or review of documents the House Intelligence Committee, or the Senate Judiciaries asking for conclusive answers. Drain the swamp. Do you fear the President is trying to get these documents for his own defense?

MURPHY: Well, first of all, there's absolutely no credible evidence that the allegations the President is making is true. So if the precedent gets set that the President can make a wild allegation and thus becomes -- and thus the Department of Justice is required to give him and all of his friends evidence and information about their investigation, then there is no end. The President will get everything and ultimately, be much more successful in stymieing the investigation. So I really worry that once this precedent gets set, once the Justice Department starts to share investigatory information, we will never be able to stop it.

HAYES: Yes, I mean, you're up for reelection this year, aren't you, Senator Murphy?

MURPHY: Yes, I am.

HAYES: You were just nominated I think just a few days ago I believe in the convention there in Connecticut. I mean, what happens if the President tweets I demand the DOJ investigate Chris Murphy?

MURPHY: Right. I mean, listen, that's why there is a reference. There has been this very clear separation between the President and his Justice Department. And democracy starts to crumble when the executive can start to use his enforcement agency for political reasons. And if he can demand that they change an investigation into himself and into his friends, what's to stop him from using that power of the Justice Department to come after the rest of us? So, again, there are really important walls being torn down today between the President of the United States and the Justice Department. And once they get torn down, I worry that you can't put them back up again.

HAYES: One of your colleagues, Republican colleagues Senator Cornyn, he is the number two Senate Republican, had this to say. I think the special counsel needs to wrap things up as soon as he can consistent with accomplishing the job he has been given. I would think so that he should finish before the midterm, saying Mueller's team should avoid what happened with the Clinton probe. This seems to be an emerging consensus a little bit, Republicans more and more are calling for this to wrap up.

MURPHY: I think Mueller has to go until he's found the truth. And the fact of the matter is, as he continues to get more guilty pleas, as he continues to get more individuals close to the President who are willing to cooperate with him, he is likely finding new avenues of investigation that he has to pursue. So I think Mueller has to continue this investigation until it reaches its logical end. I understand Republicans want it to go away. I understand the President wants it to go away as more of his friends are being rolled up. But that's not the job that he was given by Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. His job was to find out whether there was any collusion between the President and the Russian government and I have a feeling he's not close to the end.

HAYES: I want to ask you also before I let you go, ten Americans, ten people murdered on Friday with a gun in a school three months or so after Parkland. This is an issue that you have been incredibly forthright on and focused on. Is Congress any closer to doing anything now than in the days after the Parkland massacre?

MURPHY: I think a shooter could walk into a school and kill 100 people and Republicans wouldn't bring a debate on gun violence before the House of Representatives or the Senate. I think Republicans have made it very clear that they have no intention to debate the issue of gun violence in the Senate or the house before the midterms because they don't want to expose their members to votes that would make them very unpopular as they head to the polls. What I do know is that Congress's silence is giving an effective green light to these shooters. You and I talked about this before but I really do believe that these very troubled young men who are contemplating those acts of violence noticed that the highest levels of government have offer no meaningful condemnation to the acts of previous shooters, and in their minds, they pervert that silence into permission. And so I do believe that there is blood on all of our hands if we don't step forward and pass meaningful legislation to try to stop this. These are copycat killings, and these killers are taking some very strange and unintentional signal from our silence.

HAYES: Senator Chris Murphy, thanks for your time tonight.

MURPHY: Thanks.

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