CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BALDWIN: Laura, thank you very much.

A number of Democrats are pretty upset about Whitaker's potential involvement here in the Mueller probe.

And one of those Democrats with me now. He's Congressman Steve Cohen, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee.

So, Congressman, welcome. Nice to have you back.

REP. STEVE COHEN (D), TENNESSEE: Thank you, Brooke. Nice to be with you.

BALDWIN: So, the headline at this moment on Whitaker is that he has no intention of recusing himself.

And like we have said, "The Washington Post" reports that folks close to him believe he won't approve any subpoena of Trump as part of this Mueller investigation. To that, Congressman Cohen, you say what?

COHEN: Whitaker is obviously a hatchet man hired to destroy and strangle the Mueller investigation. And he wasn't going to recuse himself.

Whether he should recuse himself or not is an opinion question, subjective question that possibly could go to the courts, and the courts could make a decision.

But the administration and the Justice Department will fight it with all they have and appeal it to the Supreme Court, and hope that Justice Kavanaugh is the fifth vote that they need on executive power and executive privilege to thwart any questions of his objectivity.

BALDWIN: So if you're calling him a hatchet man, you are the ranking member on House Judiciary, soon to be in the majority of the House. What are you going to do about it?

COHEN: No, I'm the ranking member on -- I'm the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution.

Mr. Nadler is the ranking member on Judiciary. BALDWIN: What do you plan to do about it, as a Democrat?

COHEN: Well, at the present time, we have written letters to Mr. Whitaker to preserve all records and correspondence. And we have written letters to Goodlatte asking for hearings.

[15:20:00]

Writing letters to Mr. Goodlatte asking for hearings, we might as well be writing to Santa Claus and asking him for a Lexus or a Tesla or whatever. It's just not going to happen.

And I don't think Mr. Whitaker will respond either. But we're doing what you should do and what you would expect reasonable elected officials and appointed officials to respond to.

Other than that, we can prepare for when we go into the majority on January 3. And there are legal avenues that can be pursued where members of Congress can take action to question his not taking a -- making a recusal, and also to question his appointment, whether or not it's a vacancy or not, whether it was a voluntary vacancy or whether he was fired, and whether or not he had to be approved by the Senate at some time, or whether it's a recess appointment.

I think the committee is looking at all those things. Beyond that, I'm going to go to the protests today in Memphis. There's one today and there's one on Saturday I hope to be able to go too, and let people know that we're listening, we hear them, and we share their concern that our democracy is under attack, and that this is an open and notorious and brutal assault on our democracy and on transparency and on justice.

BALDWIN: On -- forgive me. Of course, Jerry Nadler. I was just reading his statement yesterday. And he feels as forceful as you do, Congressman.

But we have heard from Senator Lindsey Graham. And I note that it was last year, it was last summer when he had warned that there would be -- quote -- "holy hell to pay" if Jeff Sessions was fired.

What's the hell from Republicans right now?

COHEN: Well, hell is having to be quiet when they see justice being trampled upon and injustice being encouraged.

I don't see anybody rising up to do anything. I mean, I think I heard Senator Collins say something. The Republicans are all -- well, there's a few of them, there's a handful that are pretty good on talk.

There was a in "Chorus Line," something about looks X and dance whatever. In this case, I think of the Republicans, they're talk 10 and votes and action one, if that.

And we have gotten very little out of them, whether it's -- whoever it's been. Somebody over there needs to stand up. And -- but I doubt they can find enough votes to go with the Democrats to do anything. We have got a bill a protect Mr. Mueller. I had that in -- brought it up on the floor of the House and brought a motion to bring it to the floor. And it got all -- about 183 Democrat votes. But the only Republican that would sign on, we only had one. And that was a shame.

BALDWIN: What can you do with that? You're about to having the majority.

COHEN: Well, if we could get a majority, we could force a vote on the floor. But you have got to get a majority to bring it out of committee and to the floor for a vote.

And we would probably get every Democrat we come back, but that's still 193. And you probably wouldn't get many Republicans. Now, there's a chance we could get -- who knows what Mia Love and Curbelo and Mike Coffman and the others who President Trump read off yesterday, like he was doing Rosh Hashanah Kol Nidre speech about who died in the previous year.

BALDWIN: When he was publicly shaming them, you mean? Yes. Yes.

COHEN: Yes. It was like when I'm temple and they read off the names of the dead, of blessed memory.

He was doing the best impression of a rabbi I have ever heard from a president. And if those people -- and there's still a lame-duck and he needs their votes on some bills.

And if I was -- if I were one of them, I would be like Ryan Costello, who showed his anger. And he sent a -- or not his anger, but his revulsion at it. And he sent out a tweet. Ryan Costello is a real good Republican who resigned -- or retired, rather than run for reelection because of the redistricting.

And he didn't like what Trump was doing. And Ryan's a great guy. And he's the kind of Republican you need. But he found it so abhorrent that he was singling out Republicans who got beat because of Trump, and him saying they lost because they didn't love him, and talking about them like, sayonara, I don't care about back to you because you didn't love me.

I mean, it was a strange show yesterday. It was a very bizarre show.

BALDWIN: Yes.

COHEN: And it's like, the president needs a vacation.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: Well, he's got a few more years.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: He needs to go to Club Med.

BALDWIN: Well, we will see what happens in 2020. COHEN: Or Club Meds.

BALDWIN: And maybe your party can send him off on a longer vacation, but that's going to be up to America. And we will see what happens in 2020.

In the meantime, Congressman Cohen, thank you so much for swinging by. It's nice to see you.

COHEN: You're welcome, Brooke.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source