MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Jerry Nadler

Interview

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MADDOW: We`re joined in studio now by Congressman Jerry Nadler of New  York. He is the top Democrat and will be the incoming chairman on the  Judiciary Committee in the House.

Sir, thank you very much for being here.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY), RANKING MEMBER, JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thank you.

MADDOW: There is a whole bunch of things that I want to talk to you about,  but I actually have to talk to you about some breaking news that we`ve just  received, and I know you`ve seen the headline since it just broke.
Do we have the full screen of this? Can we put this up on the screen  please? This was just posted in "The Washington Post." You see the  headline there: 7-year-old might grant girl taken into border patrol  custody dies of dehydration and exhaustion. A 7-year-old girl from  Guatemala died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into border  patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States  along a remote span of the New Mexico desert.

According to Customs and Border Patrol records, the girl and her father  were taken into custody about 10:00 p.m. December 6th, south of Lordsburg,  New Mexico. More than eight hours later, the child began having seizures.  At 6:25 a.m. emergency responders arrived soon after. They measured her  temperature at 105.7 degrees.

According to a statement from Customs and Border Patrol, she reportedly had  not eaten or consumed water for several days. This is an announcement  tonight from Customs and Border Patrol.

I just have to get your reaction to this, sir.

NADLER: My reaction is obviously outrage. Number one, you know in no  particular order, why are we learning of this now from "The Washington  Post"? Number two, how can you run a detention facility and not take a  look at the kids who you know have been walking across a desert and how  they`re doing, give them water when they come in.

This is part of the absolute insensitivity to migrants, to people seeking  asylum on the part this administration. We`re going to have Secretary  Nielsen before the Judiciary Committee next Thursday. We`re certainly  going to ask her about this.

What measures are taken to make sure that when people arrived in custody,  they`re not going to die, especially the children.

When you take 7-year-olds who you know have been walking across the border,  walking across a desert, you don`t check them, you don`t take their  temperature? You don`t give them water to drink? For eight hours?

MADDOW: There is obviously an issue across multiple policies, multiple  policies in this area of just increased hostility towards immigrants of all  kinds and in all sorts of circumstances. In this case, that would seem to  hit in excess with the sheer issue of competence. Once you have taken  somebody into U.S. federal government custody for any reason in any  circumstances, those people become the responsibility of the U.S. federal  government.

NADLER: It`s more than competence. It`s total disregard. You don`t give  a damn. That`s what this shows.

MADDOW: You said that Secretary Nielsen will be called to answer for this.  When the Democrats take control of the House soon, and you as expected become chair of the Judiciary Committee, obviously, you have all sorts of leverage that you never had before. But with the Senate still under Republican control, with the administration still under the control of a Republican White House, how do you strategize as to how to be most effective, especially on an acute accountability issue like this when you may not have any sympathy across the aisle?

NADLER: Well, there are a number of things you can do. You can subpoena  witnesses. You can get the secretary in front of you. You can demand  answers to questions. You can condition appropriations on proper conduct,  on proper policies, on just getting the information.

So, there are all kinds of things you can do. It takes two houses to pass  an appropriation. There are lots of things you can do.

And we`re going to have to -- in our committee, the Judiciary Committee,  and in the House generally, we have to do two things. We have to hold this  administration accountable. We have to -- which the Republicans in  Congress have absolutely refused to do.

And at the same time, we have to pass legislation to do the things we  promised we would do, to lower health care costs, to put people -- to raise  people`s paychecks by an infrastructure bill by rebuilding America, all  sorts of things we have promised, voting rights, you name it. And we can  do more than one thing at a time.

MADDOW: When you say -- you mention the issue of appropriations need to  get through both houses. Do you think on the issue of treatment of  immigrants, especially again with this breaking news tonight about a 7- year-old girl dying of dehydration and exhaustion in U.S. federal custody,  border patrol custody, do you think that there is an appropriations fix,  that there is a way to deny funding to the administration for some of the  policies they`ve pursued that have been the most dangerous or egregious in  your eyes?

NADLER: I`m not an expert on that, but I think there are. There are ways  of using appropriations and denying funds to various things or conditioning  funds and putting mandates into appropriations bills, yes.

MADDOW: I want to ask you about some of the things that have happened  within the past week. It`s been almost every day there has been an almost  unimaginable new reveal in terms of the scandals that are attending this  president and the legal trouble that he and his administration and maybe  even some of his business associates may be in.

Today, Maria Butina plead guilty to being -- to conspiracy to act as an  agent of the Russian government in this country, and one of the things that  struck me in terms of the prosecutors` assertions in her case is about the  NRA. There have been questions raised as to whether or not the NRA  illegally coordinated with the Trump campaign and its spending during the  campaign. There have been questions raised as to whether the NRA might  have been used as a funnel for foreign money into the campaign in 2016.

Butina also describes a meeting she brought NRA officials to Moscow in  December of 2015, had them meet with Russian government officials and just  quoting from court documents today, after their visit, Butina sent Russian  government officials in Russian translated to saying we should let them  express their gratitude now, we will put pressure on them quietly later.

Given the role of the NRA in U.S. politics, if senior NRA officials  participated in this kind of Russian operation, is that itself a concern  separate and apart from the influence they might have had in the election?

NADLER: By national security, certainly, it could be national security but  it also could be obstruction of justice. And it`s part of a larger  pattern, a total culture of corruption.

We now know that the Trump campaign was involved in all sorts of illegal  actions, you know, about Michael Cohen`s actions, all these different  things and this all has to be investigated by the special counsel, by the  Congress as part of our oversight responsibility.

And the essential question comes back to what they asked in Watergate, what  did the president know and when did they know it? There`s a pattern here  of the president being surrounded by crooks. By people who are now  convicted or pleading guilty, an extraordinary number of people around him  have admitted to crimes. That raises all sorts of questions we have to get  to the bottom of on behalf of the American people -- at the same time that  we`re delivering results for the American people on the substantive issues  that they want, whether it`s health care or the economy, et cetera.

MADDOW: If the president himself is implicated as prosecutors have  suggested in the felonies to which Michael Cohen has pled and for which  he`ll now go to prison, is that something that you believe the Congress  would take up on its face, that you would take the information that has  been presented by prosecutors and pursue it in terms of criminal  investigation?

NADLER: Well, at some point, we have to wait to a larger extent to see  what the Mueller investigation reveals. What`s very clear is that Mueller  investigation knows more than we do.

MADDOW: Yes.

NADLER: But we will use our subpoena power to find out a lot of things,  too. We don`t want to step on them, but we will find out a lot of things.  And at some point, we`ll have to make decisions. But that`s down the road.

MADDOW: Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York, top Democrat, incoming  chairman on the Judiciary Committee in the House, thank you, sir.

NADLER: Thank you.

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