CNN "State of the Union" - Transcript: Interview With Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is open, at least for now. The U.S. government is back up and running, after five weeks that left

hundreds of thousands of Americans without pay and agencies starved for resources.

On Friday, President Trump gave in, announcing he would sign a temporary spending bill to reopen the federal government, without any funding for the border wall. The move was a win for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who maintained she would not even discuss border security until the government reopened.

The president defended himself against critics from the right, tweeting, the move was -- quote -- "not a concession."

But, on its face, the president retreated from his demand, and the deal was essentially the same as what the Senate unanimously passed in December, before the president forced the shutdown.

Lawmakers now face a ticking clock, of course. They have three weeks to make a deal before the government runs out of funding again. President Trump has already said he will shut down the government or declare a national emergency if he does not get funding for his wall.

Joining me now is Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. He's also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senator, I want to start with the shutdown.

The president did not get any wall funding in this short-term deal. S&P says the economy over the last 35 days lost billions of dollars because of the shutdown.

Was this whole strategy by President Trump, with Republicans in the House and Senate going along, was -- was it a huge mistake?

SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R), FLORIDA: I don't think shutdowns are good leverage. It's a lesson I have certainly learned in my time here.

Look, there's been two shutdowns since the time I have been there, and the aggressor in neither one was the winner.

I think it's important to separate the tactics from the goal and the policy aim. And what the president wants is not unreasonable. It's a fraction of what Democrats have voted for in the past. And, more importantly, I think, at least for me, is achieving border security is the key that unlocks the door to doing other things on immigration that he's expressed a willingness to do, the extension of TPS, dealing with the DACA population.

I believe he's willing to go even further and do something reasonable with people who have been here a long time unlawfully, but are not criminals. But all of that is being held up by the inability to get agreement on border security, which the president campaigned on.

So, I hope people will separate the tactics from the policy, because I think the policy is reasonable and solid. TAPPER: But, as you know, the Democrats voting for more money in

border security in the past, especially in 2013, the immigration reform bill that you helped push, that was in exchange for a lot of other things having to do with undocumented immigrants, having to do with a path to legal status. It wasn't just given out willy-nilly.

You see there's an opportunity here over the next three weeks to get something done? Where does that optimism come from?

RUBIO: Well, first of all, we shouldn't be trading border security for anything, because it's something we're all for.

If you are for something and I'm for something, why do we need to barter and negotiate over it? And the second part about it is, they don't have to leverage the president on what to do with people in DACA or TPS, because he's already expressed a willingness to do things on that.

And I think people will be surprised at how much this White House is willing to do, maybe not as far as the Democrats want to go, but how much certainty they're willing to provide people under DACA, under TPS, people that have been here for a long time, but aren't criminals, if the president can get his primary promise, which should be something we all share.

And that is that we want to protect our borders in a way that's effective. And that's why, to me, apart from the fact that we should protect our borders and everyone should be in agreement with that, is the fact that it opens the door to doing much more on these other issues and finally beginning to solve this -- this issue of immigration that for 20 years people have talked about, but no one has done anything about it.

TAPPER: But, Senator -- and I don't want to spend the whole interview on this issue -- you know that the only reason that these individuals under TPS and DACA are in this unsettled and insecure status is because of President Trump, President Trump taking away the protections that had previously existed for them.

[09:05:05]

RUBIO: Yes, but understand those programs are called temporary protective status for a reason.

And if you just were to look at it from a hard, cold, analytical perspective, the -- the controversy, the crisis that justified those TPSes had long ago passed.

So, at this point, the reason why people like me want to see TPS extended and perhaps even provide permanency for people from Haiti, from Honduras and other places, is, they have been here a long time. Some of these people are business owners. They have children that are U.S. citizens. They have children that are deployed on behalf of this country.

So, the longer time passes, the deeper roots people have in our country, the more sense it makes to allow -- allow them to say. But TPS, by name, by design, is supposed to be temporary. The president is simply following the law in that regard.

That said, he has said he is willing to extend it, maybe even find permanency. In fact, they've told me they're willing to provide permanency in some cases for these people, but he's got to get his first priority done. It's the way he can justify it. And it's the key that unlocks the door to everything else.

That's why I hope, tactics aside, we can all agree that border security is important for America and it creates opportunity to do more on these other issues.

TAPPER: That sounds like you think the tactic of the shutdown was a bad one.

Let's turn to the arrest of Roger Stone.

We now know that senior members of the Trump campaign were in contact with Stone, talking about how to get information stolen by Russian hackers released through WikiLeaks, information that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign.

We also now know that top members of the Trump campaign met with a Russian lawyer who had offered dirt on Hillary Clinton and that campaign chairman Paul Manafort offered internal polling data from the Trump campaign to somebody who has ties to Russian military intelligence, Konstantin Kilimnik. That's at least according to the FBI.

Based on what we know publicly, how is this not already evidence of conspiracy by members of the Trump campaign to work with Russians to influence the election?

RUBIO: Well, I have seen the same reporting and the same writing on all of that.

But my position on this all along has been, Mueller's probe should continue, it should be allowed to reach its full conclusion, and that we should all reserve judgment, no matter what little bits and pieces are coming out, until the entire thing has been presented and we can analyze it in its entirety.

The Senate Intelligence Committee continues its work. We're looking at a lot of the same things, not from a criminal justice perspective, but from an intelligence -- counterintelligence perspective. And we're going to have a report at some point this year, which I hope and expect will be bipartisan.

And when we have those two things out there, then I think it's an opportune time to sit down and make pronouncements about it. But I think it's -- I just continue to believe that it's a mistake to begin to sort of make these pronouncements until we have it all before us.

And I -- I really would caution everyone and advise, you are going to be a lot better informed and your opinion is going to be a lot more valid if you wait for all the information to be out there.

TAPPER: Let's turn to the political turmoil in Venezuela.

The U.S. has backed self-proclaimed acting President Juan Guaido against Nicolas Maduro.

Here's what freshman Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who just landed a spot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had to say -- quote -- "A U.S.-backed coup in Venezuela is not a solution to the dire issues they face. Trump's efforts to install a far-right opposition will only incite violence and further destabilize the region" -- unquote.

What's your response to the congresswoman?

RUBIO: This is not a U.S.-backed anything.

This is -- I didn't see any Americans on the street in Venezuela when hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Venezuelans took to the streets on the 23rd.

This is Juan Guaido and the National Assembly, which was lawfully elected under the constitution of Venezuela, by the way, a constitution put in place by Hugo Chavez -- they followed the constitution that said, the election in January was invalid -- sorry -- the swearing-in in January was invalid because the election that put Maduro there was invalid.

When there's a vacancy in the presidency, the president of the National Assembly, which happens to be Juan Guaido, becomes the interim president, and in the next 30 days, he -- to 45 days -- he has to call for new elections.

That was all their law. They followed that. The U.S. simply supported the democratic institutions, along with, by the way, 16 countries in the region. This is not the U.S. This is Honduras. This is Guatemala. This is Canada, and Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, et cetera, et cetera.

So, this is not a U.S.-sponsored anything. This is us supporting the people of Venezuela who want their constitution and democracy followed. That's a fact.

And anyone who -- if people choose to ignore it because they don't like Donald Trump, that is silly.

TAPPER: I know that no decisions have been made and I know that efforts are being made to avoid any sort of military action by the U.S. in Venezuela.

But you have said that all options should be on the table, including potentially U.S. military force, if Maduro doesn't back down, if U.S. diplomats in Venezuela are at risk.

How would you explain to the families of American service members why it's worth potentially risking their lives to go to Venezuela? RUBIO: Well, first of all, I'm not -- no one -- I don't know of

anyone who is calling for military intervention.

What I'm calling for is for the constitution to be followed, for military officials in Venezuela to follow and uphold the constitution they swore allegiance to, for Juan Guaido to be able to act as interim president, until we have a new, valid election, so we can support that new democratic government.

[09:10:05]

That's what I'm calling for. The United States always retains the right, always, anywhere in the world, in any instance, to protect its national security.

So I'm not going to justify military intervention, because I don't know who is calling for that. What I have said is, everything is an option because we always have an option of defending our national security in cases where it's threatened.

Why we should care about Venezuela is a different top. It is in our national interest to care. Why? They allow the ELN and other drug trafficking networks to flood our country with cocaine and drugs. They have invited the Russians repeatedly to open military installations in our own hemisphere.

And they are destabilizing the entire region, 600,000, 700,000 migrants in Peru, over 1.5 million to two million in Colombia. This is not -- this a regional catastrophe. Another two million Venezuelans this year could go into different countries, further destabilizing these nations who happen to be allies and key partners in the anti-war, counterdrug effort.

So, this is in our national interest to care about what is happening there. And it's always in our national interest to support people, especially in our hemisphere, who are putting their lives on the line for democracy.

TAPPER: Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, thank you so much for your time.

RUBIO: Thanks for having me.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source