CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With California Congressman Ted Lieu

Interview

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BLITZER: All right, Tom, thank you, Tom Foreman reporting.

Let's talk about this and more with Congressman Ted Lieu. He's a Democrat. He sits on the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees.

Congressman, thanks for joining us.

REP. TED LIEU (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Let's talk about the attorney general of the United States.

Is this how an attorney general should be responding to a chant of "Lock her up," what we just heard?

LIEU: Not at all.

It is highly irresponsible and inappropriate for the nation's top law enforcement officer to joke about locking anybody up. Jeff Sessions should apologize.

But his comments also show that Republicans are focused on the past. Hillary Clinton is not president, and she's not running for president. Democrats are focused on the future, on reducing health care costs, increasing wages.

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And Americans have a chance this November to decide how they want this country to go.

BLITZER: Yesterday, the president said that the Russian cyber-warfare that went on during the 2016 campaign was -- quote -- "a big hoax."

Today, he said Putin wants to help Democrats in November in the midterm elections. Both of those statements contradict what his intelligence chiefs say. So why aren't we hearing members of Congress speak up to defend the intelligence community this time?

LIEU: Wolf, that's a great question. You see Democrat speaking up. Unfortunately, you don't see Republicans doing the same.

And if the president truly believes his own tweet today, then I hope he would advocate for funding election security. Democrats fought for that last week, but House Republicans rejected it. My hope is Donald Trump can now push for funding for election security. That's what we need going into November.

BLITZER: Is that tweet, the tweet today saying the Russians want to help the Democrats in the midterm elections, is it laying the groundwork, Congressman, to blame Russia if the Republicans lose the majority in the House in November?

LIEU: It's possible. It's also not true.

What we know from 2016 is that Russians attacked not just the DNC. They also attack the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, also known as the DCCC. I'm a vice chair of the DCCC.

And it's very clear the Russians were also attacking Democratic congressional campaigns. They're going to try to do that again this November. So the president is simply not true on that one point.

BLITZER: Today, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, said that many things came from the meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin.

And he said it's unequaled -- his word -- unequaled in the history of the United States how tough the Trump administration has been on Russia. Your reaction?

LIEU: Yes. That is simply not true.

The president's performance in Helsinki was so disgraceful, when he took Putin's position on election interference over the position of our American intelligence officials.

In addition, the Trump administration has been slow in implementing the bipartisan congressional sanctions on Russia. And it's gotten so bad that the U.S. Senate, on a bipartisan basis, has now introduced increased sanctions on Russia.

BLITZER: Congressman Ted Lieu, thanks so much for joining us.

LIEU: Thank you, Wolf.

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