MSNBC "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren

Interview

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O`DONNELL: That is a shot of the protest that has occurred on the steps of the United States Supreme Court tonight after the president has announced that his nominee for the United States Supreme Court is federal Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Joining us now, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat from Massachusetts.Senator Warren, thank you for joining us tonight. I really appreciate it.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Thank you.

O`DONNELL: I`m sure you heard in or in Brett Kavanaugh`s acceptance of this nomination from the president tonight, he mentioned his time teaching at Harvard Law School. You`ve also been on the faculty of Harvard Law School. I`m wondering if you overlapped with Judge Kavanaugh. If you met him at Harvard Law School or known him in anyway from Harvard Law School.

WARREN: I don`t know him from -- personally from Harvard. What I knew him from are his opinions that he`s written and I know him from the fact that he appears on the list that the Federalist Society put together of people who will overturn Roe versus Wade. You know, that`s how we know Brett Kavanaugh. That`s the principal way.

O`DONNELL: And I just want to go to something right away that Ron Klain mentioned in our last segment. And that is Judge Kavanaugh`s view of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. What do you think it would mean to the future of the bureau if he becomes the Supreme Court justice?

WARREN: Well, look, he`s already said he thinks it is unconstitutional because it has a single director rather than multiple directors, which it`s not the only agency that has a single director. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency is another one that has a single director and we have the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, you know, throughout government.

Here`s what troubles me about it, though -- I look at it this way -- Donald Trump had a list of people that had been pre-screened by the Federalist Society. And, so, he knew that everyone on that list was committed to overturn Roe versus Wade because that`s the standard he used. He knows that everyone on that list is committed to overturning health care rights for tens of millions of Americans.

So the question then becomes, how do you pick under those circumstances? And Donald Trump picks the nominee, picks the person who says, you know, it would be a total disaster for the United States of America if it turned out that the president of the United States got indicted.

Now, the reason this is so important is, look at what he did with the consumer agency. Look at what he did with the Environmental Protection Agency. He didn`t limit himself to say, hey, listen, let`s stick with a strict reading of the Constitution. I`m going to defer to let Congress decides what it wants to do, carry out the rules.

Instead, he thought it was better to substitute his own judgment. And he wants to put his own judgment forward for these agencies, how he thinks things would work better. He is a political animal. He has been for a big part of the formative years of his career.

And, so, he thinks of this, I think, as, wow, we need to make sure that the United States of America stays safe by protecting the president from, what, from investigation, from indictment, from prosecution. That`s what troubles me about the whole picture here. Donald Trump has got the trifecta. He`s got someone who will be committed to overturn Roe versus Wade, someone who will be committed to rolling back health care for millions of Americans and someone who, it looks pretty likely, will help Donald Trump if he gets in to serious criminal trouble.

O`DONNELL: Senator, does it give you any comfort that in Judge Kavanaugh`s writing in 2009 when he was saying that indicting and prosecuting a president would be bad for the country that he kept saying repeatedly throughout the article that only you in Congress can prevent that, that only Congress can pass a bill to basically defer any prosecutions of the president until after the president leaves office.

WARREN: You know, the part that worries me most is he keeps talking about what a disaster it would be for the country. And ultimately, the Supreme Court is going to have to make law in areas where we don`t have precedent. And in other opinions, Judge Kavanaugh has already made clear he is willing to put his own judgment in and to put his judgment on the line.

And if he thinks that it would be a disaster for Donald Trump to be indicted, he looks like somebody who could very much be on Trump`s side. And what`s so worrisome about all of this is he very well could be the deciding vote in whether or not a criminal prosecution against the president goes forward.

Look, I get it. We`re looking ahead. But this is a president right now who hears the hoofbeats of an investigation that is bearing down on him. The Mueller investigation has been going forward. It has already produced multiple indictments, multiple guilty pleas and all of the threads keep tying back to Donald Trump himself. And that`s a real problem.

And Donald Trump is nothing if not a man who protects first and foremost Donald Trump.

O`DONNELL: Would you suggest to Democrats or opponents of the nomination that the place to go to work is in Maine and Alaska, to try to get the votes of your Republican colleagues there, the only two Republican senators who are pro-choice?

WARREN: Look, the way I see this is nobody makes it to the Supreme Court without a majority in the United States Senate. And I think people all across this country need to raise their voices.

Always keep in mind on this, we didn`t have the votes to protect the Affordable Care Act. We didn`t have them. I remember the day after Donald Trump was sworn in thinking about the fact that now the Republicans control the House, control the Senate, control the White House, they could roll back Obamacare next week. And I really feared they would do it.

But people across this country raise their voices and it got bigger and it got louder and bigger and louder and it was Democrats. It was Republicans. It was independents.

People made their voices heard. And ultimately, when they did that, we got enough Republicans to cross the aisle and to save health care for tens of millions of Americans.

You know, that is the remarkable part about a democracy. We raise our voices. We can all still be heard in Washington.

And for me, that`s what this is about right now, raising our voices, all of us. We need to speak up like we`ve never spoken up before. This is the time.

O`DONNELL: I`m sure there will be questions in the Judiciary Committee, especially from Democrats, about the rights of children who are being held at the southern border, some of whom you were able to visit when you went down there. Judge Kavanaugh has already ruled in that arena last fall.

NBC News reports that Judge Kavanaugh wrote a decision siding with the Trump lawyers to block a migrant teenager in Texas from being released from custody to receive an abortion. He tried to prevent that. He was overruled by his own colleagues on the Circuit Court of Appeals, and then he complained that his colleagues were creating a right to, what he called, abortion on demand for girls in that situation.

WARREN: Yes. You know, I was just down there two weeks ago yesterday, down on the border. And what I saw was deeply shocking. I talked -- I met directly with women whose children had been taken away from them, women who had been lied to when their children were taken away, women who had absolutely no idea where their children were and women who, with one exception, had had no phone calls, no contact whatsoever with children that had been taken away by the United States government.

I even met with the head of the ICE facility where these women were being held. And, look, there is just nothing else to call it. It is a detention facility. It had been re-named by the Trump administration a family reunification center.

And the person in charge said, hey, we don`t have anything here to care for children, to deal with children. We have no children here, no capacity to take them in and no plans to reunify these mothers with their children.
And we have been pushing now for two solid weeks. The Trump administration cannot come up with a plan to put children and their parents back together. In fact, what we keep finding out is there are even more children who have been separated from their parents than we initially understood. And someone like Judge Kavanaugh, who is so worried that we may somehow create rights in the people whose lives are being torn apart by the United States government, this is someone who is leaning in exactly the wrong direction.

And you know, there is a perfect example, Lawrence, of an area. The Supreme Court may end up having to make new law in this area. When that`s the case, I want to know something about this judge. I want to know something about this judge`s values. And what he has revealed so far is not something that reflects America`s values. He seems not to have any concern for what it means to be a 16-year-old stranded in this country. What it means to be a woman who comes here who is fleeing violence and asking for asylum, what it means to be a refugee.

That is not something, evidently, that Judge Kavanaugh cares about. And I think that`s going to be a real problem for him during this nomination this nomination hearing.

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: And senator, as you know, there are two federal courts in California that have cases that could end up in the Supreme Court. The Flores case the judge ruled today against the Trump administration`s attempt to be able to hold children for more than 20 days, which in the Flores case has always forbade. And the judge in that case called the Trump administration`s reasoning tortured.

The judge in San Diego federal court has discovered that -- and only because of this litigation, has discovered that the Trump administration claims to have 102 children under the age of five and that judge gave them a two-week order to get those children reunited, and they have managed in two weeks to reunite exactly two of them.

WARREN: That`s right. In fact, think about what the Trump administration`s defense in court was. It effectively was the Trump administration is so incompetent and failed to keep good enough records when families were torn apart that they can`t figure out how to bring them back together. That`s what they went into court in effect to argue.

The Trump administration has to be held accountable for what they have done to human beings on the border in the name of the United States of America.

O`DONNELL: Senator, your experience dealing with Senator Collins and Senator Murkowski, what do you think are the most effective lines of persuasion possibly on this nomination?

WARREN: Well, look. They will make their own decisions, but both of them have been quite public about their pro-choice views. They understand a woman`s constitutional right to make a decision about her own body. They have been very strong in saying they did not want to criminalize abortion and did not want to punish women. But they also care deeply about health care.

Remember, they voted to help preserve health care coverage for tens of millions of Americans. And we know healthcare is going to be on the line with this Supreme Court pick. And Judge Kavanaugh has already made clear that he is not a supporter of the health care bill and the rights of Americans to retain their health care protection.

So I think those are two issues that are going to be powerfully important to senator Collins, to senator Murkowski, but I`m just going to be blunt, I think they should be important to every senator. I don`t think there should about just the focus on two. I think every single senator has a responsibility as they prepare to vote on this nomination to look at the question of what it will mean for a woman`s constitutional right to choose. What it will mean for healthcare for tens of millions of Americans. What it will mean for having a justice who has already indicated that he is concerned about whether or not a sitting President has indictments outstanding against him, whether or not w are going to be able to protect environmental laws. The list is a long list, but right there at the top of it is going to be a real decider for a whole lot of people in the United States Senate.

O`DONNELL: Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you very much for joining us on this important night. We really appreciate it.

WARREN: Thank you.

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