CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript: Interview with Congressman John Garamendi of California

Interview

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BERMAN: Congressman John Garamendi is a Democrat from California, today speaking with Bloomberg News, he called the idea of diverting money from disaster relief to wall building reprehensible. He spoke with us earlier this evening.

Congressman, the president shifting his tone today, saying right now he's not ready to declare a national emergency. Does that ease your concerns at all?

REP. JOHN GARAMENDI (D), CALIFORNIA: No, not at all. This is a guy that has five different opinions from morning until the next day. He shifts back and forth. He's not at all consistent.

But he has been saying for the last week that he's going to declare a national emergency and build the wall. No, we're not going to let that happen. He's not going to go and do that and there will be a heavy price if he even tries to do it.

BERMAN: So, I understand that if the president does decide to do it, and you say you think he will, you have legislation prepared to stop him. How does this legislation work? Does this go to his power to declare a national emergency, or is it more targeted than that?

GARAMENDI: My legislation would be much more targeted, it goes directly at the authority that may exist today for the president to declare a national emergency, and then go after the money that Congress has already authorized and appropriated for civil works across the United States. These are levees. These are airports. These are operations, dredging operations, things of that sort. We'd simply repeal that section of the law.

BERMAN: He couldn't get the money. He could declare the emergency, but he couldn't get the money for it.

GARAMENDI: Exactly. I would expect others to pass legislation or attempt to that would curtail the ability of the president to declare a national emergency which in and of itself is a major problem for our constitutional civil rights.

BERMAN: And will be challenged in the courts.

GARAMENDI: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Now, when the president talks about taking money away from disaster relief funding, and that is under consideration right now.

[20:10:04] Can you explain what impact that would have on your district?

GARAMENDI: It would be terribly, terribly serious, the disaster recovery money that was allocated last spring in the appropriation process is absolutely necessary to shore up the levies in the Sacramento region. And for one of our communities that has 35 foot levees all around it, within moments of a break in the levies, that entire community of 14,000 people would be inundated in water that is very, very cold.

There would be numerous, numerous deaths. So it's a very serious problem of life, death and obviously property.

BERMAN: And this isn't hypothetical, exactly. You were able to get some of the documents which list the specific projects being reviewed by the administration as it considers where to go after this funding?

GARAMENDI: Absolutely. It's publicly available. On the Army Corps websites, there's all of the projects that the 2018 emergency appropriations for disaster recovery would be used for. They're laid out there. Most of these projects are going to go to bid and contract over the next few months.

All of those are subject to the presidential whims. But we do know that specifically targeted were the projects in California, $2.5 billion as well as Puerto Rico, another $2.5 billion.

BERMAN: Congressman, what's your message to the 800,000 people who did not get paid today, government workers who had zero on their paychecks given there were no negotiations as we speak to end the shutdown?

GARAMENDI: We're trying. We've been trying since the new Congress was established, since the Democrats came into power last Thursday. That night, we passed legislation that would reopen the government, send it over to the Senate. The Senate is sitting there, I suppose, waiting for it to hatch.

The ball is in the Senate's court. The president says he'll veto it. So there's where the problem lies right there.

We're willing to continue to discuss this matter about how to wisely, appropriately, using the taxpayer money to secure the southern border.

BERMAN: Congressman Garamendi, thanks so much for being with us.

GARAMENDI: My pleasure. Thank you.

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