CNN "The Lead With Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Interview with Mazie Hirono (D-HI)

Interview

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TAPPER: Welcome back to breaking news coverage of President Trump's firing of his Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The two men have been at odds over Session's decision to listen to the ethics lawyers at the Department of Justice and recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Joining me on the phone is Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. She serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee and she was re-elected last night with I think just 70, 71 percent of the vote. Senator, congratulations.

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D), HAWAII: Thank you very much.

TAPPER: Your reaction -- your reaction to today's developments?

HIRONO: It didn't take long for the President to act immediately to protect himself, because it's always about him, all of the time, every time. So first he fires Jeff Sessions, and then he names Matthew Whitaker as the Acting Attorney General, very, very troubling knowing Mr. Whitaker's views about the investigation. But you know, it raises, of course, a conflict of interest with regard to Whitaker, and it certainly goes to the obstruction of justice by the President. That's why Congress has to pass legislation to protect the Mueller investigation.

TAPPER: So you and your colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee already passed out of the committee legislation to protect Mueller. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Majority Leader, did not bring it up. I think he said he didn't feel there was any need to do so. Do you believe that there will be any appetite by Republicans to do so, and will there be perhaps a push by somebody like you or others to do so before the end of this Congress when you lose even more seats in January?

HIRONO: We passed the Mueller investigation basically to protect any special counsel out of the Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan way. And the only reason that McConnell didn't bring it on the floor was he says, we don't need to do that because nothing is going to happen to Mueller. I don't know what it's going to take. You know, maybe a ton of bricks has to fall on McConnell's head before he realizes or recognizes what is actually going on. So certainly I expect that the Democrats in the senate, as well as the Democrats in the House, will push to protect the Mueller investigation, because that has to go on. And the President's actions are so blatantly political to protect himself that, as I said, it didn't take long for him to do it.

TAPPER: Obviously, your party's -- power as being part of the party, the minority party in the senate are limited, compared to your Democratic colleagues in the House, who are going to soon have the majority. What do you want them to do that you are not able to do?

HIRONO: Certainly, they'll be able to investigate what's going on with the President. And my friend, Jerry Nadler, with whom I served for six years in the U.S. House, I know that he has already said he wants to know what the President's motives are. I think we can pretty much conclude what his motives are and that is to protect himself. So I expect Jerry Nadler to be chairing the Judiciary Committee in the in the House and then to proceed with what he needs to do to get to the bottom of this and to protect the Mueller investigation.

[16:55:22] TAPPER: Do you think that this is where it ends, that the that he appoints Matthew Whitaker as Acting Attorney General and Whitaker maybe you know, tries to keep -- tries to shrink or contract the bounds of the Mueller investigation or do you fear that there -- more is going to happen?

HIRONO: I think as long as the Mueller investigation continues that this is yet more actions by the President that goes to obstruction of justice.

TAPPER: Does President Trump have the right to have his Attorney General who every sees fit as long as that person is ultimately confirmed by the Senate?

HIRONO: I think -- I think motives matter and this is why the obstruction of justice is such a big issue for Mueller. And obstruction of justice is really it's a pattern. It's a cumulative effect of all of the actions that the President takes, the motives behind those actions. And if you were just doing this as one-off then maybe so, but it's not. It's a pattern of obstruction. There's no question that he's been wanting to end the Mueller investigation from the very beginning calling it a witch-hunt. So despite of the fact that say Russians interfered not only with the 2016 elections but that this election 2018 elections, the President is totally motivated by they desire to protect himself. I hope everybody gets that.

TAPPER: So your leader, the Senate Minority Leader Democrat Chuck Schumer says that the interim Attorney General, the acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker should recuse himself from the Russia investigation because he has said things about how he thinks that the Russian investigation could theoretically be starved of funding or it needs to be limited in scope. If -- first of all, why would he need to recuse himself? I understand why you don't trust him to lead the investigation but is there actually like a legal or ethical reason why he would need to do so?

HIRONO: There are some parameters as to when a refusal is required which is what led to Jeff Sessions recusal. So he -- Whitaker made statements such as there would be out of bounds for the -- for the Mueller investigation to go into Trump's family and his own finances and that it was a problem for the Trump people to take the Trump -- the Trump Tower meeting. So these are all matters of interest and --

TAPPER: But surely he's allowed to have an opinion. He's allowed to have an opinion on these matters and does his expression of those opinions mean that he needs to -- I'm just -- I'm an on an attorney, you are so I'm just -- is there some sort of legal reason why somebody who expresses an opinion could therefore not supervise an investigation about you know, the opinion of what you talked about?

HIRONO: When you express an opinion, that's fine. But when you put it in the context that he is actually going to be the person making decisions and overseeing the Mueller investigation, that is an entirely different proposition altogether. So it's a free country. Anybody can express themselves but he's going to be making decisions that will ultimately impact the Mueller investigation and I think that he -- if this isn't a basis for recusal, I don't know what recusal means, frankly.

TAPPER: Senator, I just want to ask you one more question about the results last night. I know that you're upset that many of your friends, Democratic Senators were not re-elected. What do you make of those who say that Democrats overreached when it came to the Kavanaugh hearings and that hurt people such as Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, Joe Donnelly in Indiana, and Claire McCaskill in Missouri.

HIRONO: I said that their battles worth fighting and definitely Judge Kavanaugh even before Dr. Ford came over had a record of being against a woman's right to choose reproductive rights, environmental protections, there were any number of reasons to not be for him. And of course, when Dr. Ford came forward and how she was by the Judiciary Committee, that should have been a total red flag. And as I said, it's bad enough that we have one person on the Supreme Court with this kind of cloud, and now we have another.

The Supreme Court should be above reproach. And now I believe that you have two people on the Supreme Court who were not above reproach and that does not do the court any good. So you know, my friends who lost principal positions and I totally respect their courage for it and I wish other people would do the same thing and note that John Tester who the President went after tooth and nail in a very personal way has been reelected and I'm glad for that.

TAPPER: Has been reelected, yes. All right, Senator Mazie Hirono, thank you so much. Our coverage on CNN continues right now. Thanks for watching.

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