CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Virginia Senator Mark Warner

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: ... awaiting all of this.

Thanks very much, Evan, for that report.

Joining us now, Democratic Senator Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator, thanks so much for joining us.

SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: Thank you, Wolf. BLITZER: We have a lot to discuss on the shutdown. I know it affects

a lot of Virginians. We will get to that in a moment.

But let me start with this Russia investigation. The federal judge in this case says Concord, this Russian troll farm, as this company is known, wants to share this information with Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is known as Putin's chef. What are your concerns if that happens?

WARNER: My concerns are this individual, Putin's chef, is one of the oligarchs, that in a sense Putin outsourced the responsibility for the intervention into our elections to this individual.

He's got a catering company. He also set up and ran something called the Internet Research Agency out of St. Petersburg. That is where a lot of the Russian activity, the individuals who created the fake accounts, the individuals who targeted particularly African-Americans, the individuals that literally touched over 150 million Americans with their fake accounts, originated out of.

So I think the efforts of these lawyers are to basically try to find out how the American intelligence services through these kind of inquiries were able to get as much information and how and why Mueller was able to get such great documentation on the illegality of the IRA and folks affiliated with that.

BLITZER: Interesting points.

The president's nominee, as you know, to oversee the Russia investigation, William Barr, he will have his confirmation hearing for attorney general of the United States next week. You have already said his nomination should be withdrawn due to a memo he wrote questioning the special counsel's investigation.

How will you assess his confirmation hearing?

WARNER: Well, I think we have the one thing we have seen from the Trump administration is, they want somebody in the Justice Department that will clamp down on the Mueller investigation.

Rod Rosenstein has not done that, so Trump wants to put someone in who is loyal to him first. The acting attorney general, Whitaker, obviously didn't pass the smell test. Now, unfortunately, Mr. Barr, who has got a good reputation, but it appears during the summer was putting forward these memos saying the president in a sense is above the law, almost soliciting for the attorney general's position.

And I feel that those kind of memos, in this case, at this moment in time, disqualifies him. This will be up to the Judiciary Committee -- I'm not on that committee -- to do the review. But I'm going to try to convince my colleagues that there should be someone else in that position, someone that will allow the Mueller investigation to go on unimpeded.

BLITZER: Yes, and if he's confirmed in the Senate, he clearly is not planning on recusing himself...

WARNER: Right.

BLITZER: ... as the former attorney general did.

Let's turn to the government shutdown, which affects so many people. The White House is asking now for what they call a steel barrier on the border, but they also want funding for other security measures and for humanitarian needs.

Do you reject all of these requests or simply reject the barrier funding?

WARNER: Wolf, I'm all for additional smart border security, 21st century security. Technology. Drones. Electronic fencing. Whatever the experts say we need.

[18:15:01]

What I'm not in favor of, though, is holding 800,000 federal employees hostage who won't get their paychecks come Friday, hundreds of thousands of contractors who even when the government reopens won't be reimbursed at all, literally thousands of businesses who are close to national parks who've missed weeks now of high tourist trade.

And those parks where folks did go in, unfortunately, without supervision, have been trashed. And the maintenance costs are going up dramatically. I'm worried about the fact that our Coast Guard has not been paid for weeks. They are supposed to be interdicting both undocumented immigrants and drugs and narcotics.

I wonder how many folks after they don't get paid on Friday are going to come to work on Saturday. I wonder the same when we see TSA officials phoning in sick in record numbers, because, again, they're frustrated.

Reopen the government. At least let us vote on what the House passed so that we can have our say about reopening government. And this is a crisis that was manufactured by Mr. Trump. I think there's willingness to try to meet additional border security needs, but let's not do it with this ongoing threat of the government being shut down.

Why is he playing with all these people's lives as political pawns on a political issue that, frankly, let us fight over, but don't hold these other folks hostage?

BLITZER: Well, if some of those border security measures are necessary, why can't you reach a compromise? A lot of people are wondering, what is going on with the federal government?

WARNER: Well, Wolf, I'm all for the $1.3 billion that we put forward last year. We even put forward $1.6 billion in an earlier -- in an earlier assessment.

We also had the assurance that actually Donald Trump would sign that legislation. That's why Leader McConnell brought it up. It passed. And then Donald Trump changed his mind. We then heard he sent up Mike Pence, and he had a separate offer. Donald Trump rejected this own vice president's offer.

So we now have at least documentation for what Trump asks for. I think there can be a way to get to an increased border security, but let's not do this that, in a sense, at the point of a gun, when he's got that gun held against the economic future of not only the 800,000 federal employees, but a whole lot of other folks who depend on federal services.

BLITZER: As you know, the president is planning a prime-time Oval Office speech tomorrow night, a visit to the border on Thursday to hit home his message that this is a crisis.

He's also considering declaring a national emergency, Senator, to build his wall, to use funds already appropriated by the Department of Defense for the U.S. military to build that wall.

What's your reaction to that approach?

WARNER: Well, my reaction, first of all, in terms of a speech tomorrow night and a political visit to the border on the following day, it means that he's not anxious to have this -- have this dispute be resolved.

I mean, I was a governor. I had difficulties with my legislature. I'm a Democrat. I had a 2-1 Republican legislature. When we had disputes, I put everybody in a room and we kind of locked the door and we wouldn't let anybody leave until we got to an agreement.

That's not this president's approach. He has it my-way-or-the-highway approach. And he's willing to hold literally hundreds of thousands of Americans' lives and economic well-being in jeopardy until he tries to extract what he wants. That's not the appropriate way.

Now, in terms of this national security explanation, I'm not an expert on what he can declare national security or not. But I do know this. This is not the way normal presidents, Democrat or Republican, treat the Constitution, treat the laws or treat the legislative process.

BLITZER: Are you, Senator, personally going to try to block all bills in the U.S. Senate until the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, allows a vote on reopening the federal government?

WARNER: Wolf, we're going to take this a day at a time. I mean, one of the reasons why we got into this position right now is people backed themselves into corners where they can't get to yes.

I do know this, that the first piece of legislation I would hope the Senate would take up would be the bill that's already passed the House that would reopen the government. I would like to have a chance to have my view expressed on that. And, frankly, I think the reason why Donald Trump doesn't want that to be voted on is, I think a number of Republicans realize we owe an obligation to reopen the government.

Now, that's going to happen tomorrow. I'm not going to vote to move the bill that Leader McConnell is doing to put up. We will see what happens after that, after Mr. Trump makes his national address and then goes to the border security.

But the fact of the matter is, the pressure is going to only ratchet up as people don't get their paychecks on Friday. And what we have seen from this administration is, they don't connect the dots. They said, we want to have a shutdown and not make any kind of pains.

So they furloughed the Park Services, but left the parks open. They did, not realizing that was going to lead to the kind of destruction that's taken place at the parks.

[18:20:07]

They now are saying, well, you're going to give tax refunds, but they have not said when. And how are they going to do that, when they have got 88 percent of the Treasury employees furloughed?

Saying they're going to do stuff is not a plan. And what we have seen from this administration time and again is the haphazard approach that just, frankly, is irresponsible.

BLITZER: Senator Warner, thanks so much for joining us.

WARNER: Thank you, Wolf.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source