MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Sen. Mark Warner

Interview

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HAYES: Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He joins me now. Senator, do you have concerns about this latest news about the President having yet another substantive conversation with Vladimir Putin without note-takers, without American translator?

SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA: Well, I heard about that reporting and of course I`m interested. Today in our public hearing, Senator Wyden raised the issue of did the intelligence community ever get a full readout frankly of even what happened in the Helsinki meeting between Mr. Trump and Vladimir Putin.

I think it`s critically important that at least some senior officials get those kinds of readouts from these meetings.

HAYES: Do you have concerns the President is compromised by Russia?

WARNER: I think it`s terribly important that the Mueller investigation finishes. I think it`s terribly important that our Senate investigation finishes. And obviously, it has been more than a little bit bizarre over the last couple years to see a President of the United States in public kowtow to a Russian president.

HAYES: Respectfully though, that`s not an answer to the question. Do you have concerns the President is compromised by Russia?

WARNER: You know, Chris, we`re going to finish our investigation. I`m not going to draw any conclusions until I finish that investigation. That`s been the operating principle since we started and that`s the only -- and I would point out to you as you know, and I think many of your viewers know, were the last bipartisan investigation going and I think that`s terribly important particularly when Mueller comes out that there becomes some bipartisan validator out there.

HAYES: What do you -- what would you tell people about the amount of confidence they should have in your committee`s work particularly those who are Democrats who might be watching and are suspicious to the fact that it`s chaired by a Republican Senator Burr and contrasting that what to happen in the House Intelligence Committee when chaired there by Devin Nunes.

WARNER: Well, I think you`ve seen with Senator Burr, I think we`ve got a great partnership. We`ve even had joint press conferences along the way.
And our committee already has made a number of kind of interim reports.
For example, we confirmed the fact and would done in a unanimous bipartisan way that not only did the Russians interfere but they interfered on behalf of Trump against Clinton.

We pointed out the fact that the Russians touched at least 21 states electoral systems and luckily we`ve got bipartisan legislation now to try to correct that going forward. And it was actually our committee that made the first reveals about the level of usage that the Russians made of social media particularly of Facebook and Twitter and candidly that`s an area that I`m going to come back to legislatively this year.

HAYES: The Intel chiefs testifying today seem to be at odds frankly with the White House on two of the key policy issues. North Korea, where the White House has declared progress that the Intelligence Community seems to think is not apparent and has not been shown in terms of the nuclear program, and then kind of the opposite with Iran where the White House seems to be saying there in strategic pursuit of nuclear weapon and the Intelligence Committee saying -- the community saying there`s no evidence of that. What do you make of the disconnect?

WARNER: Well, these folks have got a tough job and the most important aspect of anybody in the Intelligence Community. And I asked all of these individuals before they got confirmed, will you be willing to speak truth to power. And in the case today, I think we`ve got the Intelligence Community giving virtually unanimous conclusions on some of these key areas. And we have unfortunately a case where it appears that this President doesn`t want to hear the truth or doesn`t actually reflect the opinions of the Intelligence Community. And that puts us in a challenging position.

HAYES: Final question about the first bill that was moved through the Senate after the shutdown (INAUDIBLE) a variety of parts of it sanctions including a provision that would allow governments to penalize either groups or citizens that engaged in boycott divestment or sanctions of Israel. If passed in bipartisan margin, a lot of Democrats voted against it. The New York Times editorial board and others saying this is essentially unconstitutional. It criminalizes or creates government penalties for a protected conscientious speech. What`s your response to that argument?

WARNER: My response is there are I think appropriate ways as some states have weighed in I think with appropriate regulations in terms of the -- being against the BDS Movement. I support Israel and -- but I do believe that there may be some parts of this legislation that was currently brought up that did pass first hurdles at least with about 75 votes that may be corrected or amended in the House.

HAYES: So you have -- you do have some constitutional concerns about those provisions?

WARNER: Listen, I have heard there was a couple of different legislative vehicles out there that raised this issue. I think some of these are going to be reexamined in the House and that`s what part of legislative process is about.

HAYES: All right, Senator Mark Warner, thank you for making some time.

WARNER: Thank you.

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