CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: One-on-one interview with Congressman Ted Lieu

Interview

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CABRERA: Sarah Westwood, more questions, indeed. Thank you.

I want to bring in Democratic congressman Ted Lieu of California. He serves on the House Judiciary Committee and is a former attorney.

Congressman, thanks for being here.

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

CABRERA: How do you interpret what Giuliani said this morning on CNN that he couldn't rule out Trump talking to Cohen about his congressional testimony?

LIEU: Many times when Rudy Giuliani appears on TV, he raises more questions than is answered, and he made two very interesting admissions, one is that it's certainly possible that Donald Trump talked to Michael Cohen before he testified in Congress and Rudy Giuliani also said that discussions about Trump tower Moscow may have gone all the way up to November 2016. That would directly contradict from Donald Trump junior told congressional investigators under oath.

[18:10:17] CABRERA: So what does that mean?

LIEU: One of the things that happened last November is in addition to Democrats running on health care and infrastructure. We also ran on having a separate and co-equal branch of government that would conduct oversight. We are going to call in these witnesses and get to the bottom of all these allegations and really find the truth so the American people knows what happened during 20916 elections.

CABRERA: I'm trying to understand, though, what your biggest concern is here because Giuliani says he is 100 percent certain Trump did not direct Cohen to lie. And if that's the case, if Trump was urging Cohen to be truthful in his testimony before Congress, when they chatted or discussed, if that happened, I mean, would it be OK, then, for Trump to talk to a witness about their testimony?

LIEU: That may very well be the case. It's important that we hold these hearings and do our investigations to either exonerate Donald Trump or to show that he committed various crimes and we need to have American people understand what actually happened. And we don't really know. What we have are basically news articles plus things that Rudy Giuliani says on TV, some of which he has to backtrack from. That's why we have to put people under oath, subpoena documents and then do our own investigations.

CABRERA: What would you tell your Democratic colleagues who say now is the time to impeach, enough is out there already?

LIEU: The first thing I would say, and I'm a former prosecutor, is that Donald Trump like any other American is entitled to the presumption of innocence. And I hope these allegations are not true because if they are, it would show that our President committed criminal acts. That's why we have to have a very, very serious investigation calling witnesses, put them under oath and then put the truth out to American people. And then based On the Record that was created we can decide what to do from there.

CABRERA: The President keeps bringing up Michael Cohen's father-in- law ahead of his upcoming testimony ahead of Congress next month. I want you to listen to another exchange on "STATE OF THE UNION" this morning.

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CABRERA: Congressman, what's your response? Do you agree with Rudy Giuliani?

LIEU: I have no idea what Rudy Giuliani is talking about. You can't go ahead and threaten witnesses because that's actually a felony. And just because a President doesn't so publicly, doesn't mean it's not a crime and that's why we need do an investigation. I know that Lanny Davis who is Michael Cohen's attorney clearly says that Michael Cohen feels like he is being threatened and with have to look at this as another issue to investigate.

CABRERA: Do you then see the President's comments as obstruction or as witness tampering or as threatening a witness?

LIEU: That's how I read it but one of the issues is intent. What did the President intend to do? That is something we have to again get witnesses to come in under oath and testify about what actually happened. But a lot of this is out in the public, it is on twitter or it is on TV, so making the case may not be all that hard.

CABRERA: It is day 30 now of the government shutdown. You heard the President's proposal this weekend. He wants more than $5 billion for physical barriers in exchange for temporary protections for dreamers and immigrants under temporary protective status. Do you see this as a new starting point in negotiations?

LIEU: So Democrats have had a very straightforward and reasonable request that has not changed, which is Mr. President re-opened our government and then we negotiate a deal. But we can't talk about these very complicated issues with a government shutdown as a negotiating tactic. That is wrong. And if we allow this to happen, then Donald Trump will simply shut down the government later this year when he doesn't get his way again. And that's why we have to first re-open government and then we are going to talk about anything the President wants to talk about.

CABRERA: I hear your point on the principle of the matter but when it comes down to the policy, what the President is presenting, is there anything on his list that you disagree with?

LIEU: Well, yes. I think if we are going to talk about a status issue, which is DACA, totally unrelated to funding, by the way, which is why the government is shut down, I think that should be a permit request that's fixed. We shouldn't have all these folks who are worried about whether they're going to be deported and not have a permanent fix so Donald Trump's proposal for a temporary fix I would not support.

[18:10:02] CABRERA: We are here in this situation where 800,000 workers are about to get another zero dollar paycheck. People are struggling to put food on the table, pay their mortgages or their rent, pay for medicine. At what point do Democrats say it's not worth the fight?

LIEU: So, again, Democrats have a very reasonable position, which is let's re-open government and that's why we passed eight bipartisan bills in the House of Representatives to U.S. Senate to re-open government. One of them is actually just a very short-term 30-day re- opening of government so we can negotiate a deal with Donald Trump on whatever he wants to talk about in terms of immigration, but we can't have a negotiating tactic of a government shutdown that's harming people that's going to then cause us to cave on all these issues because he's just going to keep on doing this again and again.

CABRERA: Congressman Ted Lieu, thank you very much for spending time with us.

LIEU: Thank you, Ana.

CABRERA: I appreciate it.

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