MSNBC "The Rachel Maddow Show" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Chuck Schumer
Interview
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MADDOW: We knew that Senator Chuck Schumer of New York had a plan to try to block the Trump administration from dropping sanctions against companies connected with this Putin ally, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who`s been sanctioned in this country over Russia`s interference in our elections. We also knew that Schumer could force a vote on this matter using a tiny little provision written into the sanctions bill that allows the minority leader, in this case the Democratic leader, to put something like this up for a vote even if the Republican majority doesn`t want to vote on it.
What we didn`t know today is how the vote would go once Schumer forced it. The resolution only needed a simple majority to pass today, and it passed comfortably. It passed 57-42, 11 Republicans broke ranks with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and voted with Senator Schumer and Democrats on this. They voted to keep sanctions in place against the wishes of the Trump administration.
Now, it`s not done yet. The next hurdle will be we think tomorrow and that will be a 60-vote hurdle, not a 50-vote hurdle. So, this is definitely not all done. But this vote today is already a bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration`s decision to drop those Russian sanctions.
Joining us now is Senator Chuck Schumer, leader of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
Sir, thank you very much for your time tonight. It`s nice to have you here.
SCHUMER: Thank you, Rachel. Always good to be on.
MADDOW: So, let me first get your reactions to how this went today on the sanctions vote. I was really interested to see a very heterogeneous group of 11 Republicans, some moderate, some very hard-line conservatives who sort of cross ranks to join you today.
SCHUMER: Yes, we were pleasantly surprised that so many Republicans joined us and now we`re only two votes away from telling Vladimir Putin he can`t run the show here in the United States, no matter what the Trump administration does.
You know, Rachel, on the floor today, Leader McConnell said today Putin is a thug. Well, I believe that. But if you believe that, if our Republican friends believe that, they should be voting with us, not just the 11 but more, McConnell himself.
We cannot let Putin go just free here after all the bad things he`s done. And one other thing that compounds this, this loosening of sanctions against Putin -- against Deripaska`s companies comes right on the heels of it being revealed the special prosecutor has new evidence of the relationship between Manafort and Putin. Deripaska and Manafort have a close relationship. Deripaska and Kilimnik, the fellow who was at the hotel meeting with Jared and Manafort and the others has a close relationship. The timing is not coincidental.
So, to make a strong stand here is really, really important.
MADDOW: Do you think that you`ve got another potential, another couple of Republican votes that might get you to the 60-vote threshold tomorrow?
SCHUMER: Well, I know that there were a whole bunch of Republicans who wanted to vote yes and McConnell and some of his leadership put a lot of pressure on them to vote no, but now that I think they have seen that 11 others have voted this way, yes, I think we have a real shot.
MADDOW: You know, the timing on this is remarkable. As you say, in the context of the Mueller investigation, we do have a lot of dangling threads when it comes to Deripaska, his involvement in the Manafort case, the question of whether or not Deripaska is an important of Manafort and the core question of whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
We`ve also had a couple of really disturbing revelations in the open source press in the past couple days, "The New York Times" reporting that the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether the president was working for the Russian government as president. "The Washington Post" reporting this weekend that the president went so far to confiscate the notes from his own translator when speaking with Vladimir Putin. "The Times" last night reporting that the president has told administration officials over the past year that he wants to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, which, of course, is Putin`s greatest dream.
Are those -- are those sort of creating a new climate in terms of the way both Democrats and Republicans are thinking about the urgency of this situation when it comes to the president and Russia?
SCHUMER: Well, I think it is creating a new climate. There is just so much and it all seems to be woven into a web related to Putin`s manipulation of our own government, into Trump`s acquiescence and bootlicking of whatever Putin seems to want, and in terms of the Mueller investigation because of the ties between Putin, Deripaska, Manafort and Kilimnik.
So, all of this seems to be parts of one large piece and it is changing people`s minds here in Washington. I think that`s absolutely right.
MADDOW: And, Senator, to that end, do you think that the issue of the Mueller investigation is being handled adequately, is being handled in a way that reassures you at all, when it comes to the nomination of William Barr to be the next attorney general?
SCHUMER: Well, I have a lot of faith in Mueller. I don`t have much faith in Barr. I`ve come out against him getting this job. Why? Because when you have a president like Donald Trump who has so little respect for the rule of law, so little respect for the Justice Department as a rule of law body and seems to want to manipulate justice to help him and hurt his friends, you need an attorney general who unequivocally will state certain things and Barr fudged them all. It sounded nice what he said, but there are a lot of loopholes in it.
So, for instance, he says he`s for openness and he`s for transparency. He didn`t answer the question directly, will you allow the entire Mueller report to be made public to the Congress and to the American public? Or when he says, I believe Mueller should go forward -- well, that`s not enough with a Trump presidency.
You have to ask him and get a yes answer. Will you not interfere in any way with the Mueller investigation?
So I`m worried about Barr. I think Trump didn`t choose him just because he`s, you know, a fine lawyer. I think he chose him because of his views on presidential power, and I think that given who Trump is, that Barr, unless Barr unequivocally with no loopholes answers the questions I just mentioned, he shouldn`t be attorney general. I`ll vote against him.
MADDOW: Senator Schumer, I have one other -- one of the questions I want to ask you, which is about the shutdown. Can you stick with us a moment and we`ll come back and talk about that?
SCHUMER: Sure.
MADDOW: The shutdown is about to enter day 26. Chuck Schumer is the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, intimately involved in this fight.
Stay with us. We`ll be back with Senator Schumer right after this.
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MADDOW: Joining us once again is Senator Chuck Schumer. He`s the leader of the Democrats in the Senate.
Senator, thank you very much for being with us.
SCHUMER: Sure.
MADDOW: I wanted to ask you where things stand with the shutdown. Obviously, we`re heading out of day 25 and to day 26. This is by far the longest government shutdown in history. The pain is real already for federal government workers and it is starting to have a ripple effect across lots of different sectors of the country and our economy.
Do you have any sense of how this is going to end? If you are betting on how this would end, how would you bet?
SCHUMER: Well, I`ll tell you this, the harm that`s being done to people is just awful, in so many different ways. People can`t get their medicines who are sick because of FDA and even DEA restrictions. I met a fire dispatcher who`s kicked out of his own home he`s rented because he was going to move into a house where he had not signed up for a mortgage but he can`t get approval for the mortgage.
Story after story after story, it`s mounting. And what we`re finding is our Republican colleagues are feeling the heat. I think we made it clear that this is a Trump shutdown. The American people by a 2-3-1 margin blame Trump and not the Democrats.
What`s very interesting here is even some Republicans who are for the wall don`t want the government shutdown over the wall. A Quinnipiac poll, very interesting, 39 percent of Republicans, that`s high, said Trump shouldn`t shut down the government over the wall.
So, Republicans are feeling the heat. Trump some, but he seems impervious to people`s pain, which is disgusting. But our Republican colleagues in the Senate, more and more of them are beginning to scramble.
If enough of them do and put pressure on McConnell to bring the six bills that the House passed to the floor, we can get the government open.
I think Trump thought that we Democrats would crack. We`ve been united. You saw today that even those moderate Democrats who are invited to the White House, justifiably, correctly, said no because they don`t want to be window dressing. We seen Trump stomp out of meetings because he`s not getting what he wants.
And the public is so strongly on our side our view is that Republicans are soon going to be putting enough pressure on Trump to either go around him or force him to change. We have to stay strong. So far, so good.
MADDOW: In terms of going around him, you mean passing spending bills by a veto proof majority.
SCHUMER: Well, certainly sending them to him and challenging him to veto and maybe even by a veto-proof majority. As you may remember, the bill to reopen the government for 30 days passed the Senate unanimously when McConnell put it on the floor. Ryan who was then speaker wouldn`t put it on the floor because Trump said no, but all the Republicans supported that.
So, yes, I think there is a chance that we could get a veto-proof majority on a simple resolution to reopen the government.
And our argument is simple: open the government. Three words to Trump, McConnell and the Republicans: open the government. Then, we can debate border security.
They have a different view than we do. We`re all for border security, but don`t hold millions of Americans who are feeling real pain hostage.
MADDOW: Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the United States Senate -
* sir, I know you are very busy especially on days like this. Thanks for making time for us.
SCHUMER: Thanks, Rachel.
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