MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Ed Markey
Interview
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SEN. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, look at it`s just a further indication of the fact that everything is on the table on this November election. That`s why they`re going back to the biggest contributors and they`re asking them to pour tens of millions of dollars additionally into the congressional races. They`re afraid they`re going to lose. And if they lose, they lose everything because right now they have a House and Senate that`s a rubber-stamp for Donald Trump on everything he wants to do from Supreme Court nominees, through repealing the Affordable Care Act, pre-existing conditions being eviscerated, no gun laws that go on the books to protect ordinary citizens, climate change ignored.
And if they win, if they win, the president can fire Robert Mueller, Jeff Sessions, and Rod Rosenstein and just make sure that they can sweep the entire Russian scandal under the rugs. Everything is on the table --
HAYES: Is that -- is that your suspicion if they do win that you will just see a quick move to consolidate along those lines by the President and the Republicans in the party to just destroy every part of inquiry that exists?
MARKEY: There`s no question about it. The health of our democracy is on the ballot this November. It`s as simple as that. Are we going to in fact have a completion of an inquiry as to whether or not the Russians in collusion with the Trump campaign tried to compromise our presidential election? That`s all that`s on the ballot and that`s why they`re so paranoid because they know that the investigations that the House and the Senate will conduct will ensure that every single bit of information is out there.
So even if they fired a Mueller or fire Sessions or Rosenstein that the House and Senate will be on the job they were doing back in 1974 during the Nixon impeachment process.
HAYES: There was -- you mention the Supreme Court, there was news today about a deal that was struck by the Chuck Schumer Mitch McConnell for essentially I think a voice vote on 15 judicial nominees, 13 district court or 12 district court, 13 circuit that allows all of you to go home and for those in cycle the campaign. A lot of people wondering on the Democratic side why give this up after the bitter fight over Kavanaugh, after the fact that stuffing the courts at an unprecedented rate. Can you explain the logic here?
MARKEY: Well, we`re not having voice votes on those judges. We`re having actual votes on the Senate floor on those judges up and down, yes and no. We`re voting on them this evening so there`ll be a record of how everyone was voting on each and every one of those judges.
HAYES: There`s a real concern right now I think about these sort of anti- democratic impulses coming to the floor and I think it`s a concern about the courts increasingly tilting against sort of majoritarian instincts, citizens united paired with the ability of Sheldon Adelson, and then things like voter purges. I mean, how concerned are you about what`s happening in Georgia, the reports out about North Dakota in terms of voter I.D., and this sort of precinct by precinct battle over exactly who gets to vote?
MARKEY: Yes, they can see what`s happening. An African-American on the ballot in Florida for Governor, African-American on the ballot in Georgia for governor. They can see a wave of voters, minority voters that are getting ready to come out into tip this election towards Democrats, not just in those two states but across the country. And in that paranoia, they are going to do anything they can to suppress that vote, anything.
History has told us that that is their battle plan for Election Day and that`s why we have to be totally on alert this year because we have got victory right now that is right in front of us and our side has to be up not agonizing but organizing to make sure that we battle in every single state in every single district to make sure that they cannot, in fact, implement a plan of voter suppression as hard as they try.
HAYES: All right, Senator Ed Markey, thank you for making sometimes tonight.
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